Borderline
by PoppyParanoia
Summary: Ryou is a rebellious, self-destructive teen. One night, when his antics go too far, his father sends him to a mental institution. There, he meets many odd characters, including the strangely fascinating Bakura. Tendershipping. Rated for safety. R&R.
1. Falling Stars And Picture Perfect

**AN**: **Heeey there everybody! Yes. It's me. _PoppyParanoia _FINALLY writing a story. It's kind of funny, actually. I've been reviewing stories on here for a few months now and have been too hesitant to post something, but finally I decided to go ahead and give it a shot. It's rated M for future adult themes and dirty mouths, in case you were wondering =)**

Now, it's not my first time writing fanfiction, but it is my first time posting to ...I figured why not start with an amazing show like Yu-Gi-Oh? xD Wish me luck, haha.

**Also, this story is based off of the Angelina Jolie and Winona Ryder film called "Girl, Interrupted" and the novel by the same title by Susanna Kaysen. Both are very good.**

I mostly wrote this because there are far too many fics where Ryou is all innocent. I wanted a twisted little Ryou...*evil laugh*

**Oh yes, there will be Tendershipping. BakuraxRyou. Slash. BoyxBoy. Yaoi. No like-y, no read-y, kthanx.**

* * *

**DISCLAIMER...**

I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh!, and this storyline is absolutely, positively fictional. I mean no offense to anyone.

* * *

Borderline

_"It is with great poverty as is with everything else. It gradually becomes endurable. It ends by taking form and becoming fixed. You vegetate, that is to say you develop in some wretched fashion, but sufficient for existence."_

_-__Les Miserables__, Victor Hugo, Book Five: The Excellence of Misfortune _

_

* * *

_

**01 ; Falling Stars and Picture Perfect**

* * *

There they go again.

Those stars just won't give up. They keep wailing and whizzing down, down, down, and even though they just fade off into oblivion, never actually reaching their goal, they don't stop trying. Before they crash into him, to earth, they explode into a flurry of silver and light and are never seen again. Their dreams of reaching the ground are dashed in a second, all because of a foolish choice they made and will never learn from. And despite the fact the other stars obviously saw their comrades' horrible demise, they decide to tumble down, too, because they're all just as foolish and they didn't learn from the mistake, either.

Ryou wonders why in the world something as special as a star would ever give up its phenomenal place in the heavens where it ruled high above the people, shining brilliantly and being admired by millions, just to come crashing down into the dismal, overrated place that is earth. Ryou wonders what in the world the stars see in Life down here that would make them want to undoubtedly give up their beautiful life up in the cosmos in attempt to live farther down.

Ryou thinks the stars must be_ really _stupid; he doesn't think there's really much to Life down here at all.

It's just a world of playing pretend, selfishness, and faux joys.

Swallowing, the boy tilts his head to the side, just a little bit, so that his boyfriend's reclined form is now in his view. He opens his mouth slowly, and when the words finally do come out, they sound slow and ugly.

"Do you see them too, Malik?"

There's silence, and Ryou feels frustration and anger bubbling inside his stomach, because he knows he's being ignored. He doesn't like being ignored, or being angry, or being frustrated; it reminds him that he's imperfect. He has to be imperfect, because if he weren't imperfect, then Malik would love him enough to answer him. Ryou doesn't like being reminded of his imperfection.

It's not like Ryou thinks he's perfect or anything, in fact, he considers himself rotten to the core, but that doesn't mean he can't pretend. It doesn't mean he can't pretend that he's perfect. Ryou pretends that he's perfect every day of his life. He saunters into the high school, looking simply stunning, charming and funny, and he plays perfect so well that he thinks most of the student body believes that he really is flawless.

But the sad thing is, Ryou may be able to fool a thousand teenagers into thinking that he's wonderful, but he can't fool himself.

It drives him crazy when that little voice at the end of the day chimes in with an incessant,

_"Liar. Liar, liar, liar."_

But it _really_ gets Ryou when the voice says,

"_You know you can only keep up this facade for so long_."

Because Ryou knows that voice is oh-so right. Far too right, for his taste. His popularity will only last for a season. And when Ryou thinks about it, it dawns on him that he's a senior this year, and that if he does go to college, his popularity will probably completely fade away as soon as he enters that new world. But Ryou doesn't want to focus on that unfortunate dilemma right now.

He's finally kind of tired of being so negative.

Malik still hasn't answered him, so he just forgets about him, and turns his gaze back up to the dark sky. Suddenly, his heart starts pounding a little faster. His eyes widen, and Ryou's not totally sure if he's seeing straight because are those stars falling faster or is it just him?

Are they cascading down to earth with a greater speed than he thinks any falling star should ever have or is it just that fourth cocktail he gulped down playing tricks with his mind? There's a sharp pain in his head now, and Ryou groans, pulling his hands up to his head and squeezing his temples tightly, trying to numb the pain.

His head's never hurt this bad in his entire life and now his stomach is starting to churn and he can almost feel the stomach acid burning his insides as he flops on his side and faces the boy next to him yet again.

"M-Malik, seriously, do you see them?" he slurs, and he thinks that he must sound like a really imperfect idiot right now. "The stars, the-they're falling pretty fast and I think they might hit us…" he trails off because now he's not really sure what he's saying.

His more rational mind is yelling at him that "You moron! Stars can't fall and hit you!" but his currently impaired conscience is making that heart of his pump harder and the adrenaline flow through his veins faster because for heaven's sake those stars are falling too fast and too many all at once and he and Malik are outside on the roof where they could easily be hit and…

"What are you talking about? God, Ryou, how many drinks did you freakin'_ have_?"

Malik finally says something, and Ryou groans again, burying his face into the rough shingles of the roof and trying to stop the pulsing and nausea.

"Just like, I don't know, like four or something?" Ryou mutters out, and then remembers another small fact. "But I did try some of that stuff Marik brought. Yeah, Marik brought some…" But he can't finish his sentence because all of a sudden his vision is dark and tunneled and he feels the blood rush from his head to his toes.

"Ryou? Oh God, Marik, get in here. I think he's—"

But Ryou doesn't hear much of Malik's already far off voice because next thing he knows his limbs are limp and every nerve of his is tingling, and he takes one last look up at the sky before it all goes black and the falling stars explode into a burst of silvery light.

* * *

"All right, I need you to shoot him up with some Valium and then get the IV going."

The doctor's hectic voice sounds really weird to Ryou as the cool fabric of the hospital gown rubs against his skin and foreign hands press down on his arms and legs, trying to get him to settle down onto the gurney they've rolled out.

The pulsing in his head isn't so bad anymore, but now he feels extremely panicked, and his breathing is ragged and he can't quite calm his heart rate no matter how much he wants to.

"Ryou, I need you to calm down, okay?"

Ryou wants to punch the nurse in her pretty little face. He can't really move because now they've strapped him in, so he just glares at her as best he can with his cloudy eyes.

"I-I'm try-trying…" he tries to tell her that's exactly what he's been attempting to do for the past ten minutes but it's obviously not working out so she just needs to shut up because her annoying little instructions aren't helping the situation, either.

"What did you say, sweetie?"

Now Ryou's just completely pissed off. A quick fury rises in his chest with his frustration, because this nurse is so_ incompetent _that she can't even understand him. He takes a deep breath in and sits up quickly.

All of sudden, the beeping of the machines all around him, the doctor scampering around getting ready to pump his stomach, the nurse outside trying to console Ryou's hysterical father, and the various other medical helpers shuffling about hit him all like a brick. His headache comes back full force, and before he can stop it, he feels his stomach heaving and he writhes to the side and vomits.

The nurses and doctor don't miss a beat. The nurse nearest to his right simply rubs his back soothingly and whispers, "Shh, honey, it's okay", and Ryou starts heaving in and out. Finally, he feels his gut settle down and he hesitantly lies back onto the pillow.

"I-I wasn't supposed to mix those pills and the alcohol, I guess," he slurs, and the nurse chuckles despite herself. Once again, Ryou gets the urge to smack her.

"No, you weren't," The doctor's stern voice replies, and Ryou feels oddly ashamed of himself. "You're lucky your friends called the ambulance when they did, or you might be dead right now."

Ryou feels a sudden rush of shock and disdain at that comment, and looks to his left because all of a sudden he feels wet cotton on his arm. The nurse is dabbing his limb with what he assumes is alcohol, and he's about to ask why before she plunges a several inch long needle into his soft flesh and he watches in horror as the liquid vile empties into his veins.

It's a millisecond before Ryou feels the sharp, slicing pain of the tool and he opens his mouth, shooting upwards a little, wanting to scream and pull the needle out of his delicate flesh, but when no sound comes out and he realizes his hands are strapped in, he feels really rather hopeless. Finally, the woman pulls out the shot with one more burst of piercing pain, and quickly slaps a new cotton ball onto Ryou's arm where she just injected the needle, cleaning it off.

"Why would he ever do this?_ Why_?"

Ryou looks up suddenly with the hysterical, tear-choked voice, and catches sight of his distraught father standing in the window outside the hospital room he's in. He's speaking with who Ryou guesses is another nurse.

The nurse that Ryou wants to punch must have overheard them and thought the question worth repeating because she says,

"Ryou, did someone make you do this?"

Ryou laughs. But it's hollow due to his condition and sounds sick and sarcastic, but that's okay because that's what he was aiming for it to sound like anyway.

_Did someone make you do this?_

The ludicrous statement rings throughout his mind, and he looks the nurse straight in the eye. He sees a flicker of fear in her face when their gazes meet, and he thinks that's because he must look really crazy right now, with his chocolate brown eyes wide and wild, his white hair matted to his forehead with sweat, his face paler than paper, with various needles and drugs in him.

"Yes, _someone_ made me do this," he sneers, thoughts tumbling about in his head. He's actually kind of sickly pleased with himself that even in this condition he knows exactly what to say to her statement. Ryou is_ never_ one without words. "_Someone_ made me do this because _someone_ was sick and tired of being suffocated and lied to his entire life, and he wanted to finally get away from it all, even if it was only going to be for one night."

The nurse looks confused, so Ryou continues.

"That _someone_ was me."

"Is the IV going?" The doctor cuts rudely into his conversation loudly, asking the nurse Ryou was speaking to.

The nurse jumps out of her conversation with Ryou all too easily, and replies positively to the doctor's statement, and Ryou feels angry again. But he doesn't really have time to act on that feeling, because next thing he knows his vision is once again dark and tunneling and he feels really, really tired. Slowly, his eyes close, and as they do, he chuckles. He gives one last look at the nurse hovering above him, and as she's fading away, he whispers,

"But, y'know, it could've just been an accident, too."

* * *

It's a balancing act.

Ryou tries to situate the pencil on top of the armrest of the chair just so. He doesn't want it to tumble down and made a clatter, after all. Unfortunately, the laws of physics work against him as always, and the pencil begins to roll down the surface of wood. Ryou's quick enough to catch it before it whirls to the ground, however.

"Ryou, answer Mr. Hawthorne."

His father's scornful voice breaks him out of his odd reverie, and he looks up, wide, brown eyes searching the face of the older man sitting at an all-too familiar mahogany desk in front of him.

A small smile takes its place on his face.

"What was the question, sorry?" he says, getting a twisted satisfaction as his father shakes his head.

"I apologize, Mr. Hawthorne. Ever since Ryou was let out of the hospital, he's been acting a bit dazed. But they said that was common side effect of all the drugs he was on, so I assure you, he won't always be this distracted, so to speak," his father says, and Ryou snorts, earning a disdainful look from him. Ryou's father is the only family he has. When he was little his mother passed away due to the affects of a long-term illness, later followed by his little sister Amane, who was killed in a car crash.

Mr. Hawthorne looks mildly amused, but only for a moment, until his face melts back into that "no-nonsense" look Ryou is _far_ too accustomed to. The principal of his high school was someone Ryou had to say he was well acquainted with.

He may be "perfect" to his fellow students, but his parents had a whole different standard of "flawless", and being clever, witty, and daring wasn't on the list.

"I understand. What Ryou went through obviously was a toll on his body, and we'll make sure to take that into consideration as we set up his final exam and last semester classes' schedule," the man announces, and Ryou's father takes the initiative to speak up.

"So he still can graduate even though he missed almost a month?" he asks, a mix of hope and tremulousness in his voice that Ryou finds appealing only because he really thinks it's just that unappealing.

The principal nods, but then reaches into his desk and pulls out a manila folder filled with papers. On the tab, Ryou reads in bold, permanent marker shaped letters his name.

A smirk rises to his lips despite the uneasiness that dances around in his gut, suddenly.

"Unfortunately, though, Sir, your son will have to take a couple extra classes to make up for the ones he skipped earlier this year," the principal reveals, and Ryou laughs inwardly.

_Here it comes._

His father simply looks shocked.

"Excuse me, but did you say 'skipped classes'?" He asks disbelievingly.

The older man sitting at the desk in front of the three looks confused and surprised but nods.

"Why, yes. Your son skipped three classes—" Mr. Hawthorne pauses, peeks into the folder, and continues, "—biology, Spanish, and literature last semester. Just didn't show up once."

Immediately Ryou feels like melting into a puddle of goo or bursting out of his chair and dashing out of the school and down into the street in hopes of getting hit by a car to save him from the humiliation he feels as his father turn his head to slowly look at his child in utter shock and disappointment.

"Well, good gracious, sir, I had no idea. I can't express how sorry I am that my son caused you this inconvenience but—" Ryou's father begins, his tone still wistful and surprised, but he is interrupted by the principal.

"Didn't know? Our office staff and I left several messages at your home phone and one or two on your cell phone telling you of Ryou's skipping," Mr. Hawthorne announces.

Ryou lets the _smallest_ of smiles emerge at that. He's pretty darn good at making sure he gets to the message machine every day before his father comes home or sneaking into his fathers coats or purse for the cell phones and erasing every message that the school leaves on the voice mail so that his father doesn't have a clue.

It's really a pity that something as tricky as that that was so brilliantly pulled off has to come tumbling down like this.

Once again, he gets a death glare from his father. Ryou simply shrugs, and begins tapping the wood of the armrest idly.

"So…are we done yet?" he asks.

* * *

"My God, Ryou. Be _serious_," Malik sneers, and Ryou snaps out of his thoughts to see his tear-stained face twisted into a look of astonishment and annoyance. His "best friend" Marik stands next to his (ex)-boyfriend, and his blonde hair hangs over his eyes as his hands rest on his hips and he stares at Ryou with disdain.

It's weird.

Weird that his 'friends' hate him like this.

Ryou simply stands up taller at their accusing faces. He repeats,

"I said that my Dad told me I couldn't hang around you guys anymore, and I'm going to listen to him."

Marik scoffs. His deep voice retorts,

"What? Get real. You, actually listening to your father? C'mon, Ryou, be serious."

Ryou stares unblinkingly at his three companions, and it's only when Malik sighs that he finally answers,

"I am."

* * *

The whizzing landscape is making him awfully dizzy.

But the radio station is playing nothing but that godforsaken "Church of the Latter Day Saints Bible Study" channel on the satellite radio and God knows that's the _last _thing he wants to pay attention to. So the next best thing is to watch the city fly by outside the mini van's window.

Ryou friggin' _hates_ that mini van, by the way.

It's bright purple and weirdly shaped, like a jellybean. Now, Ryou likes jellybeans (well, he actually likes anything sugary, really) and the color purple (lavender, as he calls it) is his favorite, but when you mix the two together and put it in the form of a car, it just isn't_ right_.

Which is why he totally renounced the automobile the minute he got his license and went out and bought another vehicle with some of his college money despite his fathers' protests (like he cared if his college fund was drained; the way he saw it, he was barely passing high school and didn't have plans to go to a university anyway).

But alas, his father adored the strange thing, and every time Ryou went somewhere with him, he was forced to ride in it.

So with his arms crossed and a bitter attitude, they pull up in front of a nice brick house. The flowers are colorful and the yard is weeded. The bright green lawn is flawlessly mowed, and there's a large oak tree out front with a simple tire swing swaying in the breeze dangling from its large limb. It's picture perfect.

Ryou feels sick.

He hears the click of his father unbuckling, and he shifts uneasily in his seat. Still not looking at him, he hears him begin to talk, and once he's done, Ryou's not making any promises.

"Don't lie to the therapist, Ryou."

* * *

**I should be updating this at least one chapter every week. **

**Please review *Puppy face*** =)


	2. Semi Charmed Sign Here

**AN:** Now, I have this story written up already to a pretty far point, so updates shouldn't be TOO slow =)

Yeah, I'm using the English Yu-Gi-Oh! character names, partly because I'm British so I do watch the English dub, no matter how lame it may be, and partly because there's going to be minor OC's in future chapters and English names are a lot easier to think of than Japanese ones =)

Anyway, here's the new chapter, everyone! Enjoy!

* * *

Borderline 

_"All people want is for someone to listen."_

_-__Hugh Elliot_

* * *

**02 ; Semi-Charmed "Sign Here"**

* * *

**DISCLAIMER: **I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh!, and this storyline is absolutely, positively fictional. I mean no offense to anyone.

* * *

"The stars were falling."

"Excuse me?"

Ryou narrows his eyes, and looks up at the balding man in front of him. "I said the stars were falling," Ryou repeats, and exhales an aggravated breath. "God, how'd you become a therapist again? _Honestly_."

The man known as Dale Williamson, his father's best friend and an accomplished therapist, sits in front of the boy, pen and paper in hand, and an unreadable look on his face in response to his client's statement.

"The stars falling, Ryou? That's a simply ridiculous claim," Dale scoffs in a strangely polite fashion, and Ryou just continually stares coldly back at the older male.

"Ridiculous or not, it _happened_," Ryou answers, and leans back into the not-so comfortable leather chair. He rubs his palm on the armrest.

"You know, they had to kill an innocent cow to make this leather. Doesn't that make you feel kind of bad?"

Ryou considers his decision to become a vegetarian one of the better choices he's made in his life.

There aren't many, he decides.

Dale takes a deep breath in, and completely shrugs off Ryou's last statement. "It _didn't_ happen, Ryou."

"What? The cow thing? Hate to break it to you, but it did."

"No, Ryou, I wasn't talking about the leather chair and the cow. I'm talking about the stars falling. The stars don't fall, and when there is a shooting star, it's simply a meteor and it's gone within a couple minutes, probably not even that long. There's no way the stars could have done what you claimed. Now, Ryou, would you please explain to me _why_ you thought the stars were falling, and why you were scared? Did—"

Ryou suddenly feels this unexplainable urge to say something, and, head whirling, he snaps,

"Did I what? What am I supposed to explain to you, Dr.—" Ryou pauses, emphasizing with disgust the title of "doctor", "—Dr. Williamson? Am I supposed to explain…"

Ryou suddenly gets up out of the leather chair, feeling and hearing the squish of the material as he does so. He begins to pace the red-carpeted floor of his father's friend's office and continues. "…Explain to a doctor," he motions towards the older man politely.

"…Explain to a doctor that the laws of physics could be reversed? That, what goes up might not come down?" he continues, raising his eyebrows curiously. "That, time could move backwards and forwards and sideways and that stars could fall out of the sky at 100 miles per hour about to crash into me and my boyfriend?" Ryou finishes his little speech as his voice rises so that he's kind of shouting, and walks towards Mr. Williamson quickly. Forgetting all about personal boundaries, he leans close into the man's face menacingly and whispers,

"Is that what you'd like me to _explain_, Dr. Williamson?"

Dale simply stares at the boy before him for a few moments, obviously not intimidated by Ryou's strange, somewhat threatening behavior.

Then, he gets up silently, walks over towards his cluttered desk, and picks up the phone.

Ryou feels that loathed feeling of anger and frustration welling up inside of him again, because he's being ignored and his imperfections are rising to his conscience quickly.

"Hey!" Ryou calls, angrily. "Hey! I'm talking to you; where do you think you're going? You can't do this! You're supposed to be sitting down in this fucking _chair_ of yours and listening to me vent and shout and rave crazily and you're not supposed to fucking _ignoring_ me! Hey, what are you doing?" he protests loudly, not caring that Dr. Williamson is on the phone conversing with someone and he's blowing this whole situation out of proportion.

"Hey!"

Finally, with that last shout, Dale gets off of the phone, and turns and looks at Ryou, who's still standing, hovering over his chair, glaring at him with fury burning in his eyes. The therapist takes a breath in, and then saunters back over to Ryou and calmly says,

"Sit down."

Ryou narrows his eyes again, and points a finger in the man's face. "No. No, no, no. Absolutely not, not after you _ignored_ me like that! Who were you talking to? What are you—"

"You need a rest, Ryou."

Ryou's jaw drops open because, after all, what's he supposed to say to that?

The boy gulps, and slowly backs off from the older male. Looking at him warily, Ryou stuffs his hands into his lavender sweatshirt's pockets, and replies softly,

"Yeah. Yeah, I think I'll go home and take a nap or something."

The therapist shakes his head. Before he can stop it, Ryou feels a rush of panic.

"No, Ryou. You need a longer rest than that."

Ryou just stands there.

"W-what do you mean?"

"I mean Rockford."

Ryou gulps.

"What are you talking about? You wanna send me to the loony bin three hours from here?" Ryou asks, his voice rising in pitch disbelievingly.

"It's not a `loony bin', Ryou, it's a psychiatric hospital that will help you work through your feelings of anger and rebellion—"

"_Shut up_! Just shut up. What are you saying? Are you saying I'm crazy or something?" His voice rises and breaks a little in the middle of his exclamation.

Ryou's hysterical now; that scares him because he's never really been hysterical before.

But honestly, _crazy_? Daring, clever, and maybe even a little reckless but not _crazy_.

"No, Ryou, I'm not saying you're crazy at all, I'm just saying you have some issues to work through that Rockford will help you with."

Ryou feels his world spinning just a little bit. Spinning out of his control, and he can't stop it. He puts a hand on the top of the leather chair to catch his balance.

"D-Did my father put you up to this?"

Dale is silent at that.

"I knew it," Ryou starts. "I knew it. I just knew he hated me…"

Dr. Williamson shakes his head vigorously at that statement. "Ryou, your father doesn't hate you. In fact, he loves you. He love you so much that—"

"That he's sending me to a loony bin?" Ryou cuts in sarcastically and bitterly.

Dr. Williamson sighs. "No, he's sending you to get help so that once you get out you can go to college and live a normal, stable life," the man finishes, his tone rising with frustration just like Ryou's.

Ryou glares.

"I don't want what my father wants," he sneers, and the therapist doesn't look surprised at the comment, but only at the sincerely malicious tone that the boy says it in. "I don't want 'a normal, stable life'…" Ryou pauses, "I want to do what _I_ want."

Dale Williamson stares at Ryou harshly, and swallows. Ryou's waiting with a sneer on his face for the doctor to say something, anything, but nothing comes and Ryou feels a bit of disappointment despite himself. Then, the older man walks towards the boy, and before Ryou can protest, grabs him roughly by his arm and marches him straight to the door.

As they walk out into the open air and Ryou catches sight of his father unloading his suitcases from the trunk, Ryou feels light headed and sick. The therapist's hold on Ryou's arm tightens and he asks in a stern, annoyingly mocking voice,

"Does what you want include taking Ecstasy to get high and then mixing that with several alcoholic beverages to almost kill yourself?"

And once again, Ryou can't really say anything because what's he supposed to say to that?

* * *

"My father's right there, you know."

Dale ignores Ryou for a moment, and then must mentally decide to give the boy a little peace of mind and replies curtly,

"We decided it would be easier this way."

Ryou scoffs, because, oh, apparently his father and the doctor discussed this earlier. The whole "sending him off to a mental hospital to help him sort through his problems" thing. Ryou can see from his seat on the porch swing that his father is in the front seat of that disgusting mini van crying. Ryou feels like going up and screaming at him that he's the last person who should be crying right now.

As a matter of fact, as soon as Ryou sees the white van driving down the neighborhood's street and closer to the therapist's house, he does feel like crying. The tears trickle at the back of his throat but he swallows them down and just clutches the inside fabric of his jacket's pockets harder. Dr. Williamson sits up and begins walking down the porch to the driveway where the plain white van is now waiting. Ryou can barely see through the front window, but he does know that the driver is a man.

"Follow me, Ryou."

Despite his automatic instinct to disobey, Ryou gets a feeling of hopelessness and simply stands up robotically and begins to follow the therapist down the creaky steps and onto the asphalt. He swallows as they approach the van.

"Ryou, this is the hospital van that will take you to Rockford. Your driver is employed in the men's ward you'll be staying at once you get there, so feel free to ask him any questions you may have on the trip there," Dale informs, and Ryou nods almost unnoticeably.

Dale grips the handle of the back door strongly, and then yanks it open, and Ryou cringes as the loud noise booms through his ears. He looks at Dr. Williamson.

"Do I have to sit in the back?" he asks.

The man returns his question with a "_don't even go there_" look, so Ryou simply silently slips into the back seat. It's stuffy and smells like old leather, but overall, it's not so bad.

The door is pulled shut, and Ryou feels a feeling of hopelessness again as he sits alone in the dark backseat. He's really leaving.

Ryou hears the trunk being opened, and he hears the sound of fabric brushing together as his couple suitcases are plopped in the far back. Then, the trunk door is slammed again, and Ryou hears Dale walking up to the driver's window. The driver (who Ryou still hasn't seen or learned the name of) rolls down the window and Dale sticks his head in.

"Make sure there are no stops," he instructs, and Ryou gets the urge to punch the therapist in the face. Then, Dale looks at Ryou with a blank expression, and childishly waves.

"Buh-bye."

Ryou thinks that he hates the feeling of hopelessness more than anger, frustration, or being ignored.

* * *

Ryou is afraid to say anything.

He wants music. He wants conversation. He wants to hear anything except his own nervous breathing or the mind-numbing sound of the car against the wind and the tires against the road.

Ryou is both utterly relieved, grateful, and slightly freaked out when the driver says,

"Do you like music?"

Dumbfounded, Ryou opens his mouth for a moment, looking like a dead fish, and then shakes his head quickly. "Y-yeah," he answers, and clears his throat. "Yeah, I love it."

The driver nods.

Silence again.

"Do you mind if I turn the radio on?"

"…No."

The driver's hand reaches out and turns the dial on the control board. Static comes on at first, and then finally, Ryou hears the familiar riffs of guitar. Third Eye Blind's "Semi-Charmed Life" begins to play through the speakers, and Ryou can't help but let a smile break onto his face.

"Man, I love these guys."

Ryou is shocked. This unknown driver likes Third Eye Blind. Ryou opens his mouth, and then lets out,

"Seriously? Yeah, they're pretty awesome."

A red light suddenly stops the car, and all of a sudden, the driver turns around and Ryou is utterly shocked to see that he's only a couple years older than himself, at most. He has long-ish black hair, held up in a ponytail at the back, with a black and red headband. His shocking green eyes are twinkling and welcoming, and his face has a small smile on it.

"Look, I'm not supposed to do this, but you seem fairly normal and kind of scared so I'll just go ahead. My name's Duke Devlin," The driver announces, and reaches out a hand.

Ryou's eyes widen, but he shakes it nonetheless.

"I'm Ryou Bakura."

The red light turns to green, and once again Duke is driving, his back to Ryou. But he still talks.

"So what's wrong with you?"

The question takes the younger boy by surprise. No one's ever asked him that before in that context, and he chuckles, because now he supposes he'll have to get used to it, considering he's "crazy" and all. So, smirking, Ryou announces,

"Well, I'm 'rebellious' and 'angry'."

Duke snorts.

"Aren't we all?"

At that, Ryou lets out a laugh despite himself. He can see in the rear view mirror that Duke smiles. Ryou likes Duke's smile. It makes him feel relaxed. Like Duke's really just an old friend and not a driver he just met taking him to a mental hospital.

"How old are you?" Ryou asks.

Duke raises his eyebrows. Normally, patients aren't as eager to learn information as Ryou seems to be.

"Nineteen," Duke answers, and when Ryou nods Duke finishes, "How old are you?"

"I'm eighteen. So, why in your right mind would you ever, at nineteen years old, want to work at an insane asylum? I mean, you could be off at college or whatever it is `normal' nineteen year olds do nowadays," he questions, and Duke shrugs.

"I guess I took some psychology classes in high school and my first year at college and really got into it. I live right near Rockford, so I decided it might be cool to work with some psychologically disturbed patients to get a first-hand look at the stuff I studied."

Ryou coughs.

"Cool?" he repeats, utterly shocked. "Cool to work with a bunch of psychos? Yeah, man, maybe _you_ should be in the hospital instead of _driving_ me there," he finishes, and Duke twists his mouth in distaste.

Well, Ryou certainly is an outspoken little thing, isn't he?

"Whatever, man," Duke replies nonchalantly.

Ryou stares out the small window. It's tinted, so he can't see that well.

"Why are the windows black or whatever?"

"So people don't look in and frighten patients."

"How would people staring scare someone? That's just pathetic."

"Um, we're talking about mentally disturbed people here. `_Pathetic_' doesn't even begin to cover it. What was your name again?"

"Ryou Bakura. And don't forget it, either."

Duke has a feeling he won't.

* * *

Rockford Psychiatric Hospital's sign was awfully beat up.

It was supposed to be a white sign, Ryou figures, but instead it's more of a yellow off-white. The letters were supposed to be neatly placed, big and bold and black, but instead the `R' is crooked and the color is more of a pale gray. The shrubs around the sign were supposed to be for decoration, but instead they look like a gardening accident. The bricks surrounding the sign are falling apart, and Ryou sighs.

Duke makes one or two turns, and as soon as a huge brick building comes into view, he turns off the radio. There's a moment of silence before,

"Don't tell anyone I had music on."

It's a command, not a request.

Ryou thinks that just this once he'll be nice and listen.

Finally, Duke pulls into a roundabout and parks the van on the side of a sidewalk along with a few other white vehicles. Ryou feels sick as he looks at how neat and alike they look. Duke unbuckles, and opens the driver's door. In a few seconds, Ryou's door is being opened, and a burst of fresh air enters the stuffy interior and he inhales deeply.

The scent of his new home isn't so bad.

Stepping out, Duke closes the door behind him and makes his way to the back to get Ryou's suitcases. Ryou doesn't feel the need to offer help to Duke with the bags. Duke goes up onto the sidewalk and begins walking towards a door with a small,

"Follow me."

Ryou stuffs his hands back into his pockets, and as he trails after the older male, he takes a look up at the building. It's all brick; he sees windows, too, but they're slightly disturbing to look at because even from here Ryou can see the bars and metal safety gates that seal them.

What kind of people_ live _here?

"This is the men's ward. I work here; you live here. Occasionally, you'll get grounds privileges, but for now, you're stuck inside, buddy," Duke informs, and glances back at Ryou who simply stares at him unblinkingly and mummers,

"So it's like a_ prison_?"

Normally, a smart remark like that would earn him a disdainful look or a shake of the head or a "_No, __Ryou_", but surprisingly, Duke just shrugs and replies,

"Sure. I guess you could look at it like that."

Ryou thinks this is going to take a while to get used to.

* * *

"Shouldn't my father be signing this?" Ryou asks, staring at the last page of the huge packet of hospital "Rules and Regulations" sheets that the old lady behind the counter handed him with a pen twenty minutes earlier. At the very bottom, under italicized print, it says,

_Permission to Enter Hospital Granted _

Then it has a "sign here" line.

Duke sighs behind him, waiting now impatiently at the doorway.

The old lady glances at the paper, and then shakes her head. "No, honey, you're eighteen. You sign yourself in here; this was your decision."

Ryou resists the urge to laugh as he writes his name neatly at the bottom on the line.

* * *

**Just an end note: If you haven't heard Third Eye Blind's 'Semi Charmed Life' it's REALLY good. Seriousface.**

**Next chapter you should be seeing a LOT of Yu-Gi-Oh! characters popping up :)  
**

**I've already got the next few chapters all spell-checked, edited and cleaned up, so they'll probably be up sometime today too.  
**

**Reviews make me happy =)**


	3. Hello & Hoping For Goodbye

**AN:** Enter the rest of the Yu-Gi-Oh! crew (almost)...also, there is no way in HELL I can pull off writing Joey's Brooklyn accent, so I didn't xD

* * *

Borderline

_"What we have to do is to be forever curiously testing new opinions and courting new impressions._"

_-Walter Pater_

* * *

**03 ; Hello & Hoping For Goodbye**

* * *

**DISCLAIMER: **I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh!, and this storyline is absolutely, positively fictional. I mean no offense to anyone.

* * *

"Okay, stay close to me; it's easy to get lost in here," Duke instructs as the two hike up what seems to Ryou like the fiftieth flight of steps.

Finally, they reach a beat-up, paint chipped blue door that reads "Ward 227.

"This, Mr. Bakura, is where you'll be living, and where I work," Duke announces, and then throws open the door. "There aren't many guys here. It's a special ward for, our, um, more `needy' cases. You're the sixth patient to arrive."

Ryou, ignoring the "needy cases" comment from Duke, focuses on the new sights before him. He is at first greeted with a few young men in white outfits like Duke's talking outside of a room that appears to be filled with medicine and similar things.

Duke says,

"That's the nurse's station. Self-explanatory."

The two step in farther, and Ryou looks around. To his left is a long white corridor with what he thinks are doorways lining the walls, and to his right is an even longer hallway with several room openings and at the very end, what appears to be a TV room.

All of a sudden, Ryou hears anxious footsteps and next thing he knows, a man is face-to-face to him and Duke.

The new arrival is tall, lanky, and has shaggy blonde hair and a Brooklyn accent.

"Duke! Where did you go? Why'd you leave me? Are you mad at me or something? If you are, man, I mean, what did I do? I don't mean to—"

Now, if Ryou were the one being bombarded with questions like Duke was, he would have yelled "Shut up!" by now, but Duke simply smiles shakily and takes a deep breath in.

"No, Joey. I didn't leave you."

Joey looks relieved. "Oh, good. Now, Duke, do you like this t-shirt?" He points to his red shirt. "I'm not sure if I like it and I mean, I wanna know what you think `cause—"

Once again, Joey is interrupted, but not by Duke this time.

"Devlin! Thank GOD you're back! That friggin' Yugi psycho is driving me _outta my mind_! He's going off about his godforsaken CDs again! I touched _one_ of them and he practically _tackled_ me!"

Ryou looks to the right to see an approaching figure.

The man is taller than himself and Joey, and is really rather dark and handsome. His deep brown hair is almost falling over his startling blue eyes. He's pale, and is wearing a dark purple shirt that Ryou likes right away.

Duke sighs and runs a hand through his hair.

"Seto, why did you touch Yugi's CDs? You know he doesn't like that!" he says, and Seto crosses his arms and rolls his eyes.

"I figured he wouldn't mind if I just borrowed _one_!"

Ryou kind of chuckles and all eyes fall to him. The man now revealed to be Seto narrows his gaze.

"Who's this jerk?" he sneers, and Ryou feels a bit of anger bubble inside of him.

Duke takes a deep breath in.

"This, guys, is Ryou Bakura. He's that newcomer we told you about a few days ago. Ryou, this is Joey Wheeler and Seto Kaiba."

Joey smiles shyly. Seto just stares at Ryou with that same death-cold look.

"So do you like my shirt?" Joey suddenly asks, and Seto throws his arms up in the air, groaning.

"And _now_ he's going off about that godforsaken shirt of his! My God, you've asked every friggin' person in the ward if they like it! They all said that it looks great on you; even _I_ said that, so it does, okay? Get over it and _shut up_," Seto cries, and Joey's mouth drops open in shock.

Duke's face twists in anger, and Ryou is surprised. Duke didn't strike him as one to get angry that easily.

"Hey, Kaiba, _you _shut up! I don't see Joey running around yelling when you wake up every night screaming and crying!"

Seto's face twists in shame and shock as soon as the words come out of Duke's lips, but Duke's face doesn't show any regret for saying what he did. Seto's lip quivers with fury. Then, with one last cold glare at Ryou, he storms off without another word.

There's an awkward silence, and Ryou finally says,

"Freak."

Joey gulps and then scampers off with a low, "Nice to meet you too, Ryou."

Duke turns to the left and says,

"This is the dorm-hallway. You'll be sleeping, using the bathroom, and other stuff down here."

Ryou looks for any sign of people, but no doors open and Duke doesn't offer to open any so Ryou resists the urge to say something and stays quiet.

"You'll be staying in room 6. You'll have a roommate—"

"You've _got_ to be kidding me," Ryou interrupts, his mouth falling open a little. Once again, he doesn't want to share. The thought of sharing his bedroom with some _loony_ is more than a little distressing to him.

Duke looks at him strangely, as if it's a surprise to him that Ryou's so dismayed about something like that.

"Yeah, but don't worry, he's a nice guy. One of the most normal patients here," Duke says, and Ryou feels _a little_ relieved at that.

But only a little.

Finally, they arrive at a pale blue door that reads in black "6", and Duke opens the door.

Ryou peers in over Duke's shoulder and is surprised at what he sees.

A young boy about his age or maybe even younger sits on the bed to the left shifting through what looks like music CDs. He has black hair edged with red-purple, and blonde bangs. His shortness (he hardly reaches Ryou's shoulders) adds to his seemingly innocent demeanor. He looks like an angel. One of those cherub things, Ryou thinks.

"Ryou, this is your new roommate, Yugi Motou."

Yugi looks up from his CD sorting, and Ryou can't help but smile as the other boy's face breaks into a grin. Yugi reaches out a hand in greeting, and Ryou steps forward more, taking his palm and shaking it.

"Oh hey! Great to meet you!" Yugi greets jovially, and Ryou nods in acknowledgment. "I've been waiting for you to arrive," Yugi says, and Ryou smiles awkwardly.

The thought that these guys knew about him before he knew about them is truthfully a little creepy.

Duke has walked over to the neatly made bed on the right and placed Ryou's belongings down. He now turns to face the two boys, and smiles.

"Well, I'll give you two a little time to chat later. Right now, I have to finish Ryou's tour," he announces, and then questioningly points to Yugi's CDs sprawled out on the bedspread. "Yugi, didn't you arrange those all yesterday?"

Yugi looks insulted suddenly, and shoots a strange side-glance at Ryou. Then, he replies,

"Yeah, but one of them got crooked thanks to_ Seto_," he spits the name with disgust and then continues, "So I had to re-do them, this time in alphabetical order instead of by the date they were released."

Ryou stares at the boy in utter disbelief. That was something Ryou _never_ expected to hear in his life.

"That's just messed up," he says finally, and shakes his head. "Who _does_ that?"

Duke shoots Ryou a glare with his comment, and Yugi looks shocked instead of insulted, but then it fades away to what looks like confusion. Yugi glances at Duke quickly and Duke shrugs, understanding some unspoken question that Ryou didn't quite catch.

"Anyway, c'mon Ryou. We should get going," Duke says, and motions for Ryou to follow him out of the room. With a quick wave to Yugi, he does.

* * *

"So…are you gay?"

Ryou chokes on his spit for a split second and stares at Seto, who's all of a sudden popped up next to him on the couch as they watch the news on the small TV.

The TV room was the room everyone hung out in. The living room, with its stiff chairs and Persian rugs, was completely "un-cool" and "everybody hates it", according to Duke earlier that day. So the place to hang out in was the TV room, right next to the nurses' station, with the table for cards and pool and the huge stack of non-violent, un-disturbing DVDs. Ryou decided to stay there before he got his "nightly medication" as Duke told him earlier.

The layout of the ward was simple. The left hallway was the huge bathroom, with stalls without locks and 6 bathtubs and one or two showers, the 6 dorm rooms, and then the farthest, loneliest room in the ward: the seclusion room. Duke said you only went there if you were extremely disobedient (or "acted out" as the nurses and guards put it), had a meltdown (that word scared Ryou; he wasn't sure if he could get used to the "meltdowns" that Duke mentioned happening) or if you just wanted to scream as loud as you possibly could without people being annoyed (Ryou liked that idea).

Then, to the right was the art room (It was filled with easels and paints and sketchbooks and pencils and most of all it had guitars and an out-of-tune piano that Ryou would probably play sooner or later) where patients could "release their emotions with creativity." There was the living room, as mentioned before, three phone booths to make calls (only if a number was on your "allowed-to-call list" and a nurse let you through), the nurses' station, and then finally the TV room.

Ryou was relieved that the layout was simple; he wasn't looking forward to having to memorize a confusing bunch of rooms and numbers.

"Excuse me?" Ryou asks, scrunching up his nose in shock.

Seto snorts.

"I said, are you gay? Like, you know, batting for the other team or whatever they call it?"

Ryou stares wide-eyed at the dark-haired man in front of him.

Seto waits a moment more, then rolls his eyes exaggeratedly and groans. "Oh come on. Do you like girls or boys?" he asks again, and Ryou smirks.

"Why? Are _you_ gay or something?"

Seto's face breaks into a crooked little smile, and his eyes twinkle mischievously.

"Maybe," he responds. "Maybe." Then he turns back to the nightly news that he's really not watching.

"Ryou Bakura?"

Ryou pushes to the front of the line, squeezing through Joey and Seto. The man standing at the nurses' station is holding out a plastic cup filled with two pink pills. Ryou gets there and stares at them.

"What are they?"

"Sleeping pills."

Ryou looks at his watch. "It's only like 9:30, I don't think I'm gonna—"

"God, just take the things!" Someone groans behind him, and Ryou looks and sees Tristan Taylor, another patient at the ward for substance abuse, leaning against the wall, arms crossed and dark circles under his eyes. Ryou glares, but bites his tongue and just turns around and tosses the nasty pills to the back of his throat.

The man offers him water, but Ryou gathers up as much saliva as he can and gulps down the pills without it. Then, smirking, he turns around and walks off towards his room.

* * *

"Checks."

The unfamiliar voice stirs Ryou from his sleep, and he wakes up. It's dark and blue in the room, and the window is shining with moonlight. Shadows dance menacingly across the wall, and he gulps, feeling scared only for a moment. His first night sleeping was only going as smoothly as it was because he was drugged up on the pills.

But Ryou knows now that he won't get to sleep for another hour or two because the pills have probably worn off and his mind will be too busy churning over the events of his day to rest for a while, so he turns and faces where the voice came from.

A man is standing in the doorway with a clipboard and flashlight, and quickly he shines the light on both Ryou and Yugi's sleeping form. Then he exits without a word.

Ryou sits there dumbfounded for a second, and then whispers into the quiet of the bedroom,

"Yugi?"

No response.

"Yugi," he urges again, and this time the other boy stirs and turns around to face Ryou with a sluggish,

"Huh?"

Ryou swallows. "What was that?" he asks.

Yugi smiles imperceptibly. "Those were checks. They do that to make sure none of us have run away or hung ourselves or whatever. You get used to it after a while," he explains, and rubs his amethyst eyes.

Ryou nods, trying to forget the comment about the guards making sure they haven't "hung themselves".

There's quiet, and Ryou and Yugi just stare at each other.

"Why is Seto so mean?" Ryou asks suddenly.

Yugi frowns.

"Seto has something called `nightmare disorder'. It's where something's haunting the mind or whatever and they have nightmares usually every night. Really freaky ones, and they feel like it's real," he explains, and Ryou chuckles.

"Like Freddy Kruger kind of thing?"

Yugi doesn't smile back.

"Yeah. Seto wakes up almost every night screeching and crying about how he was `gonna die' and `it's all over'. Sometimes he wakes up yelling about being `covered in blood'. It's really sick stuff."

Ryou doesn't think it's funny anymore.

"He barely gets more than four hours of sleep every night. It's rough. They usually douse him with sleeping pills, like tonight, but they're trying to take him off so he's ticked about that, I guess. Add that with the tiredness and the fact he's just a tough guy and you get Seto's nasty attitude," Yugi finishes.

Ryou nods.

"What about that blonde guy? Joey? The guy's obsessed with his clothes and doesn't talk to anyone."

"He has something called `avoidant personality disorder'. It's where the people are really socially withdrawn and sensitive to criticism but really want acceptance. That's why he's always asking everyone what they think about him."

Ryou prods on.

"Tristan?"

"Just plain ol' alcoholic and pot-head.'

"…You?"

Yugi swallows.

"I've got OCD. Obsessive-compulsive disorder really, really bad."

Ryou remembers the incident with the CDs and chews his bottom lip.

"So…anybody else in this place I should be forewarned about?" Ryou asks, smirking.

Yugi's quiet.

"Yugi?"

"Goodnight, Ryou."

* * *

**I've got about five more chapters to update tonight. AWWWW YEAHHH.**

**Reviews...purrlease? =)**


	4. Two Can Keep a Secret

**AN: **I am churning these chapters out like a BAWSE tonight.

I decided individually which disorders to give each character based on what I think would work, like, Yugi seems like the kind of guy who obsesses over the little things and so on. Joey...I just kind of did that for irony really, since he's always so outspoken I thought I'd make him super-shy and yearning for acceptance.

In this chapter, when Yugi describes Bakura's personality, those are all symptoms of a sociopath (the disorder he has in this fic).

Okay, well here's the new chapter. It's gonna start a whole new part in this story, so get ready. =)

* * *

Borderline

_"The farther behind I leave the past, the closer I am to forging my own character."_

_-Isabelle Eberhardt_

* * *

**04 ; Two Can Keep A Secret…**

* * *

**DISCLAIMER: **I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh!, and this storyline is absolutely, positively fictional. I mean no offense to anyone.

* * *

Ryou feels shuffling and wakes up quickly. His heart pounds a million times a minute as he sees a shadowy form in his face.

On top of his bed.

On top of _him_.

But before he can say a word, the person speaks,

"_Why_ are you in this bed?"

The voice is deep, and Ryou finds it oddly attractive despite the threatening tone. Then, the person moves backwards a little, and the moonlight catches his features.

Ryou thinks he's either dead or dreaming, because the guy looks like an angel.

His features are somewhat feminine but fit his tall, skinny appearance well. His eyes are sharp, and soft-yet-scruffy long white hair falls over his eyes. He looks a lot like Ryou, Ryou thinks, except this..._stranger_ emanates an unnatural beauty.

He's got a deep purple (Ryou inwardly smiles at this) v-neck shirt on with tight jeans, and his arms are on either side of Ryou, blocking him from moving. But Ryou isn't scared.

He just narrows his eyes and asks,

"_What_?"

Now, Ryou didn't expect what happened next. No one would expect what happened next.

Angel-Boy's beautiful dark brown eyes narrowed, and he took a deep breath in, looking as if he was trying to control himself.

"Get. Out. _Now_."

Ryou stares disbelievingly.

"_What_?" he asks again, confused and kind of sleepy. He's still not sure if he's dreaming.

Next thing he knows, the boy's hands are clenched around his neck, and Ryou's gasping for breath as the hands close in on his throat. The boy's face is set in a killer glare, and he whispers angrily through clenched teeth,

"Why did they give you _my_ bed? _Huh_? Tell me. TELL ME!"

With the sudden shout, Yugi flies up awake from the bed while the boy begins to violently shake Ryou, hands still wrapped around Ryou's throat.

As soon as Yugi turns and catches sight of his new roommate and the boy, his purple eyes widen and he stammers out after a stunned pause,

"O-Oh God, please, let go of him—"

The boy shoots his death look to Yugi now, and narrows his eyes even more, looking not like an angel but a demon. Yugi, who had inched forward a little bit, immediately falls back.

Ryou's heart pounds with terror as the pain in his upper body throbs and he watches.

"You lied to me," the boy sneers suddenly, his glare becoming more killer (if that's even possible, Ryou thinks) and Yugi shakes his head quickly.

"No, _please_, listen to me! You left and—"

"Shut UP!"

The boy thrusts Ryou down onto the bed as he still has a hold of his neck, and Ryou gags as his head bangs against the bedpost. Pain rings in his skull and he lets out a moan as soon as he can breathe again, reaching up and grabbing his temples, curling to his side painfully.

"Duke! DUKE!" Yugi cries suddenly, desperate and horrified, and the boy jumps up from Ryou's bunk.

Quickly, he runs and grabs a chair tucked under the desk at the foot of Ryou's bed. Shoving it under the doorknob to keep the door from opening, he glares at Yugi.

"Listen to me you traitor," he sneers, and Ryou rubs his head and watches Yugi recoil. "You LISTEN to me!" he shouts, his entire body quivering with a strange fury, and Ryou bites his lip at the shrill, booming noise. "WHY is _his _crap on _my_ bed? _Huh_?" the boy asks, thrusting his finger at Ryou. "WHY?"

There are nervous voices coming from behind the door, and it's pounding back and forth as the chair slowly slips from under the doorknob and the people anxiously try to get in. The intruder knows he's running out of time, so he hastily goes on.

"Listen to me! I WILL find out what happened and I WILL fucking fix it," He turns his gaze to Ryou. "YOU won't last another day here," he threatens, and Ryou feels a rush of fear before—

"What in God's name are you DOING?"

The boy's death stare doesn't falter from Ryou's and Ryou's fear doesn't leave as Duke and another man Ryou doesn't recognize rush forward and grab the boy from behind. They lift him up, and Ryou hears the unfamiliar man go,

"Seclusion."

The boy's eyes widen with terror.

"Oh _God_. God, Duke, no Duke! _NO_! Please, OH _GOD_!" The boy's screeching now after his voice had risen with pitch with each word, and Yugi is sitting with his hands over his ears, his face buried in his knees, shaking back and forth.

Duke and the other man obviously don't listen because they keep their hold on the boy and now he's started kicking. Ryou winces as he watches the boy's fingernails dig into Duke's arm and he imagines the pain.

"YOU'RE ALL _WEAK_! YOU'RE ALL FUCKIN' _WEAK_! YOU'RE A BUNCH OF _LIARS_!" Now, another man is rushing in carrying something, and the boy makes a huge, desperate thrash in attempt to relinquish the guards' grasp on his limbs.

"GET _OFF_ ME!" The boy shrieks, tears now obvious in his voice, and he writhes hysterically and kicks and scratches and bites and cries.

Ryou's never heard wailing as disturbing and heartbreaking as the boy's ever before in his entire life.

"STOP! JUST _STOP_!" the boy screeches, and then wails in pain as Ryou notices they shoot a needle in his arm.

Ryou's never felt the mix of emotions he's feeling right now; it's a mix of pure horror, anger, nausea, and sympathy.

Ryou doesn't like that last one. Ryou's _not_ sympathetic.

Soon, the three are finally out of the room, and the boy's yelling is now small, desperate crying that haunts Ryou's mind even as the footsteps go farther and farther down the hallway and Ryou realizes they shot the boy up with a tranquilizer as it gets quieter.

And then it's just Yugi and Ryou and Ryou's shaking and ragged breaths and it's _far_ too silent.

Yugi is shuddering and whimpering, and Ryou is lying there, jaw open, shell-shocked.

Finally, he sits up. Looking at Yugi, he shakily whispers,

"What _was_ that?"

Yugi stops his noises and looks up. Ryou notices tears in his eyes and thinks that's kind of weird. Yugi swallows, opens his mouth slowly, and then, tear choked, answers,

"That…was Bakura."

"Like my last name." Ryou automatically says. Yugi nods.

Ryou's curled up in the blue blankets staring wide-eyed and emptily at the wall when someone comes back into the room.

For a split second, he feels a rush of terror, instinctively thinking that the hysterical boy has come back. But when he sits up and sees the unfamiliar man who helped take the boy away along with Duke, he swallows.

Duke is breathing heavily, his white coat wrinkled and his hands red with little fingernail marks on them. Ryou winces inwardly.

The other man, who appears to be older than Duke, is breathing deeply as well, trying to catch his breath, with his dark hair stuck to his shiny forehead with sweat. The man takes a deep breath in, and then, looking straight at Ryou, says,

"I am so, absolutely, unbelievably sorry."

Ryou's not sure what to say at first; he thinks that being attacked by a psycho patient in the middle of the night on his first evening at what is supposed to be a high-security mental hospital calls for more than just a "sorry", but he still doesn't say anything except a muttered,

"Y-yeah. I figure you would be."

The man takes a deep breath in again, runs a hand through his hair, and then walks over to Ryou's bed. Instinctively, Ryou curls up deeper in the covers and scoots away from the edge. The man doesn't seem to notice, or just ignores, the uneasy reaction and leans over onto the bed. He reaches out a hand. Ryou resists the urge to knock it away and shout in anger and pain as the fingertips graze over his disheveled hair and touch the now forming, swollen bump on his temple.

Ryou hears the guy swallow, and then watches as best he can from his point of view as he turns and instructs to Duke,

"Get me an ice pack."

Duke nods and scampers off. Ryou feels his stomach drop as he realizes he's now alone (Well, not completely, since Yugi's technically still in the room, but Yugi's just lying on his side, seemingly asleep or maybe even dead, so Ryou discounts him) with this complete stranger.

"Uh—" Ryou starts, feeling the need to say something but not knowing what, and the man cuts him off.

Ryou is truly surprised as the other male's face breaks out into a smile, and his eyes begin to twinkle. It makes Ryou a little uneasy despite the fact it's probably supposed to help him feel better.

"I'm Tom, but please just call me Tommy. I'm the head guard in this building and more specifically this ward, and unfortunately was away today at a meeting with the other head guards at Southside so I didn't help get you settled in. I apologize," the man explains, and Ryou doesn't do anything but nod, still kind of shell-shocked with this whole situation.

Tommy swallows again, and then sits more comfortably on the side of Ryou's mattress, still not breaking his gaze from the boy's.

"Ryou, right?" he asks, and once again, Ryou nods.

Tommy bops his head as well in acknowledgment, and looks like he's about to say something else, but before he has a chance to, Duke bounds in with a blue pack of ice. He hands it to Tommy.

"Here."

Tommy takes it, and hands it over to Ryou. It's covered in a cloth, so the coldness isn't too bad against Ryou's fingers as he takes it slowly.

"Put it on your head," Tommy instructs, and Ryou takes a breath in but still obeys.

There's an awkward silence, and then Duke says,

"Tommy, do you think we should tell Ry—?"

Tommy cuts him off.

"That was Bakura, Ryou," he starts, giving a side-glance to the boy for some reaction, and with no response, continues anyway. "He ran away a month ago, and police had been looking for him. Finally, they found him shortly before I arrived back here from the meeting about an hour and a half ago. We thought we had him under control but…" Tommy fades off now, looking down in what Ryou thinks must be embarrassment. "…Apparently not," he finishes quietly.

Ryou, before he has a chance to think rationally, blurts out,

"Well, I hope you're gonna plan on doing just _a little_ _fucking better _with the task of keeping that whack-job locked up."

Tommy and Duke stare at Ryou for a few moments, and then Tommy swallows. "Of course, Ryou," he affirms, and then breathes in. "Once again, I apologize this happened to you." Standing up now, he motions towards the still form of Yugi.

"Is he okay?"

Duke nods, and then answers,

"Yeah, just a little shocked, I guess. After all, we told him he was dead and he _was_ his—"

All of a sudden, Tommy and Duke both glance warily at Ryou, and Duke stops mid-sentence. Ryou feels a rush of anger as he realizes they're not going to converse any farther with Ryou in the room. That makes him mad because he feels like, in a way, he has a_ right_ to know the full story behind his attacker.

Duke bites his bottom lip, not sure of what to say so his superior takes the hint and finishes,

"Ryou, if you need anything, don't hesitate to ask. There's always someone at the nurses' station available, okay? For now, just try to get some rest and we'll talk more tomorrow. We won't get you up at the typical seven o'clock; you can sleep in for your first morning."

Ryou nods again; he feels stupid because all he seems to be doing is nodding in response.

Then, Duke and Tommy begin to exit the room. But on the way out, Ryou (who's always proud to reveal he has the ears of a fox) picks up a stray sentence:

"This is gonna be an interesting one for therapy."

Ryou thinks maybe he dozes off once or twice for all together about an hour before pale sunlight breaks through the blinds and spills into the lonely room. He swallows.

"He wasn't always like that, you know."

Ryou turns on his side.

Yugi is swaddled in the blankets, looking helpless and innocent as the early morning light streams on his purple eyes and tri-coloured hair, making them almost glow with an angelic hue. Ryou watches as Yugi bites his lip, and he feels confused as to whom Yugi's talking about.

"Who?" Ryou whispers, his voice unsurprisingly groggy and cracked.

"Bakura," Yugi replies automatically.

At the name of the boy, Ryou feels a rush of uneasiness flutter in his gut. His pouty lips twist in distaste, and he swallows again. Yugi carries on.

"He was my best friend."

Ryou truly finds this surprising. He knew that somehow Bakura and Yugi were connected, judging by the way they both addressed each other last night, but he didn't realize that the connection was so close. Ryou nods, whispering,

"Go on."

So Yugi does.

"He was my neighbor," he starts, and then his features turn to a wistful sort of smile as memories come back to him. "I met him when he was five and I was four. My grandpa lived near him and his dad, not to mention they also worked together, and one day my grandpa and I went walking in his neighborhood and Bakura was outside shooting golf balls into the neighbor's yard."

Ryou chuckles and a small smile takes place on his face at that. It reminds him of some kind of stunt he himself would pull, and in a weird way, that idea makes Bakura seem a bit more human. Yugi continues,

"His dad and my grandpa started talking, and Bakura and I started hanging out, too. We became really, really close. So close, in fact, that every—" Yugi stops now, and Ryou's brow furrows in confusion.

"Every what?" Ryou prompts, now anxious to hear more.

Yugi swallows, closes his eyes, and then opens them again slowly. He's staring at Ryou with such intensity that Ryou thinks maybe he shouldn't have said anything.

"What I'm about to tell you, you can't ever tell another soul," Yugi says, and Ryou feels his heart start to pound a little faster. Whether that acceleration is from fear or excitement, he can't tell just yet.

"I swear I won't," Ryou promises, and for once he plans on keeping that statement.

"Bakura's dad was pretty twisted, Ryou," Yugi starts after a breath, and Ryou gulps. "He beat Bakura and drank and all that other crap," Yugi pauses. He takes a shaky breath in and his facial features are set in a look that makes Ryou think he doesn't want to continue, but he carries on regardless of what he's feeling (Ryou makes a mental note that that's awfully of nice of Yugi and maybe, maybe he won't make life too hard for him, now), "I remember, Bakura would sometimes show up at my house at like 2AM with these fresh bruises or cuts, or complaining about how his dad hadn't come home yet and there was no food, or that his dad kicked him out. My mom was always really great about it; she'd set up a little place for Bakura on the couch and usually let me sleep down there with him and stuff. She never called the police or anything though, just because Bakura begged her not to. In his own weird way, I think he really cared about his dad."

Ryou feels sympathy again. This time it doesn't bother him as much, though, because he feels like any halfway-decent person would feel bad for Bakura, and he thinks to himself that he may not be _perfect_, but he's at least about 50% _decent_. Well, more like 25%. But he's not being picky. Either way, he decides feeling bad just this _once_ won't do any harm.

Ryou nods for the other boy to continue.

"This went on from when he was like seven to when he was seventeen or something. I don't really remember, but it was a long time," Yugi says, and Ryou interrupts.

"What made his dad drink like that?"

Yugi chews his bottom lip; then he answers,

"When Bakura was two, his mom left him and his dad for another man. His father took it pretty hard, and I guess blamed the divorce on Bakura. Drinking was his way of coping with it all."

Ryou shifts in the sheets, feeling angry with Bakura's irresponsible parents. He thinks that's weird; he hasn't once met them, and already he's got a grudge.

Once again he blames that on the fact he's 25% decent.

"Bakura was a really interesting kid. Eccentric, is more like it, actually. He wrote all this really deep poetry in this beat up old notebook, was quiet and thoughtful, and was really into fire and stuff. I mean, he wasn't like a full-blown pyromaniac or anything, he just thought flames were beautiful and liked messing with fireplaces or bonfires. But to tell the truth, now that I think about, it _was_ kind of weird," Yugi admits quietly.

Ryou thinks, strangely enough, that he would have thought Bakura's interest in fire was _cool_. He also thinks that it's strange that he doesn't think that's sort of freaky.

"And then he also played these wacky instruments you'd never really expect a teenager to play: accordion, organ, banjo, guitar, and one of his favorites to mess with was an out-of-tune piano…"

Ryou thinks a little bit more highly of Bakura now, knowing that he plays four instruments. One of which (the out-of-tune piano) Ryou greatly enjoys himself. He never thought anyone else would like to play something as weird as an out-of-tune piano.

Yugi shakes his head. "But as the years went by, Bakura's uniqueness turned into more of a freaky, uncontrolled, impulsive kind of personality. He never got involved with other kids at school; I was his only friend. He always seemed to disobey whatever his father or the school told him to do. Even though we didn't hang out as much `cause we were older and went to different schools, he called me his `best friend' and we hung out on weekends and breaks and stuff," Yugi elaborates. "I remember, one night, Bakura came over to my place at like 12AM. I figured it was `cause of his dad like it normally was, but when I talked to him, Bakura said he had just gotten in a fight at a party, which explained why he was black and blue, and that the guys there threatened to kill him or some sick thing like that and he didn't know what else to do except come to my place. I asked him why the guys got so mad at him, and he smirked and said that he set their _car_ on fire."

Ryou's eyes widen at this despite himself.

"I couldn't believe it at first. I was so friggin' _mad_ at him for doing something that sick. I asked him how he could have been so stupid and put his life in danger like that when he knew the guys were obviously drunk and dangerous, and he just smirked again and shrugged. That's when I really realized Bakura was different. He was reckless and didn't feel regret. He blamed his behavior on wanting to `get back at his dad'."

Ryou gulps, because he sees a similarity between the ways Yugi described Bakura and himself. Ryou was reckless (when he wanted to be). Ryou was impulsive and daring and didn't usually feel bad when he disobeyed someone. Now, Ryou never put his life in danger the way Bakura seemed to (not on purpose, at least, Ryou thinks, recalling his "almost-suicide"), and he didn't do quite as outrageous stunts like setting drunken guys' _cars_ on fire, but the similarity was still a bit too strong for Ryou's taste.

Of course, he doesn't voice these thoughts, and simply says "Wow," because he thinks that's the next best thing.

Yugi sighs, and rolls over on his back now, folding his hands neatly on his chest. Ryou watches and waits as his amethyst eyes scan the ceiling for a few more seconds.

"I kept that night at the back of my head and watched Bakura over the next few months; as time went by, he actually seemed to calm down a little bit and I was hopeful he'd taken a turn for the better. But then…" Yugi stops now, squeezing his eyes shut, and Ryou realizes that he is crying. "…But then one night…"

Ryou lifts his head up a bit in anticipation. Yugi sees this out of the corner of his eye and continues,

"One night Bakura—"

The door opens, interrupting, and Ryou's stomach drops in disappointment as he sees Duke standing there. Yugi breaks out of his nostalgic trance and sits up a bit. Duke says,

"Yugi, time to get up. You have therapy with Dr. Potts in twenty."

And Ryou knows the story will have to wait.

* * *

**Revieeeeewsss ^ ^**


	5. A Charming Sociopath

**AN: **Yeah, Yugi and Yami are related in this fic xD

A little bit of Darkshipping (YamixBakura) in this chapter.

These next few chapters are flashbacks from Bakura's POV.

Kind of Bakura's POV.

You'll see.

* * *

Borderline

_"It is better to be hated for what you are then to be loved for what you're not."_

_-Andre Gide_

* * *

**05 ; A Charming Sociopath**

* * *

**DISCLAIMER: **I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh!, and this storyline is absolutely, positively fictional. I mean no offense to anyone.

* * *

Bakura hears yelling downstairs.

He's sick of it, really.

For the past week, every _fucking'_ night, all there seems to be is yelling. Yelling and glass breaking and crying.

And Bakura can't figure out why his dad blames it all on _him_.

He hears his father shouting at his mother about how much of a worthless, difficult burden he is.

How much he'd be better off without Bakura. How much he wishes he'd never agreed to keep him and just dropped his two-year-old son into an adoption agency and saved a lot of worries and money. How much he wishes he could just sometimes "kill the kid" to get him to stop his "ridiculous behavior because nothing else seems to be working" ("Nothing else" in his father's eyes is apparently beatings and countless Catholic church services, Bakura notes).

Bakura knows his father doesn't _really_ mean it. Bakura knows his dad is just drunk out of his mind and won't remember a word in the morning. Bakura knows that this is the main reason for most of his mother's yelling, too.

His mom replies to his father's earsplitting statements with shouts of her own: "You don't know what you're talking about; you're so trashed!" she yells. "Maybe his behavior is a way to break free of the way _you're_ treating him!" she screams. "Maybe, just maybe, he actually _loves _you and _cares_ about you, and pours out all your godforsaken alcohol `cause he doesn't want you to keel over one day from liver, brain, and kidney failure!" she suggests.

Bakura chuckles when she screams that last one.

But, in truth, he thinks that _is _partly the reason why he dumps out the bottles and bottles of his dad's vodka and wine into the cool, metal sink, watching the cursed liquid flow in a beautiful, sick circle down the drain.

The other part of the reason why he does it is that he just _loves_ blowing his dad's top. He loves when his dad's eyes narrow and his dad runs forward with that look and he _loves_ it when his dad slams him against the wall and his pale face is covered in deep violet, sky blue, and sea green colored bruises the next morning so badly that he has to put three layers of foundation on just so his overly annoying Catholic school teachers don't ask him that ever-frustrating,

"Are you all right, Bakura?"

To which Bakura smiles cheekily and jovially responds,

"Why of _course_, Father Insert-Overly-Used-Fancy-Last-Name-Here. But thank you for your concern."

Bakura once asked Yugi when they were fifteen getting water at the water fountain at the park if Yugi thought that was weird. If he thought the fact Bakura _liked_ his dad's abuse and laughed with amusement when he poked his bruises or cleaned his cuts with alcohol was weird. If he thought it was weird Bakura got a thrill-ride out of it and liked to provoke his dad to see how far he would go "next time".

Yugi just stared at him, and Bakura changed the subject and never asked again.

Bakura plops painfully down on the hard, carpeted floor of his would-be-pitch black bedroom three years after he asked Yugi that question and flops out his limbs. He stares at the ceiling with that thoughtful (or, "creepy" according to Yugi and a handful of his arrogant classmates) blank stare of his he apparently uses too much. He starts listening to what's going on downstairs, again.

Now, surprisingly, it's not _just_ his mom and dad arguing about money or _why_ his mom left in the first place (the fact she was having an affair with some other guy apparently wasn't a good enough reason for his father, Bakura bitterly thinks) or _when_ his mom's going to find time to visit in her oh-so-busy schedule to visit more or _why_ Bakura's always covered in cuts or bruises or _how_ they're going to deal with Bakura's reckless behavior and _if_ they're going to put him in therapy.

There's another voice.

It's a boy's voice.

A _teenage_ boy's voice.

It's his younger half-brother (younger by a year, which makes Bakura feel a little lousy that his mom oh-so easily got over ditching her past family and went on to have _another_ son so quickly), Kyle.

Kyle looks like Bakura.

Kind of.

He has Bakura's white hair (it's just not as soft as Bakura's), Bakura's brown eyes (but they're an unexciting brown; not big and red and green and orange and other amazing hues thrown into one like Bakura's), and his similar facial features ("angelic", as people call them, which Bakura thinks is really funny). But the one thing Kyle _doesn't_ have in common with his half-brother is Bakura's skinny, somehow attractive body type. His dad was a muscle builder or something, and Kyle is almost six foot and works out.

Bakura thinks Kyle's better looking.

But being better looking than Bakura, in Bakura's opinion, isn't hard to do.

Anyway, regardless of similar looks, the two don't really get along. They didn't really get along from the start, actually.

Bakura remembers.

"Bakura, this is your brother, Kyle."

Bakura stares at Kyle.

He doesn't like the shirt he's wearing. It's a really bright yellow polo. It hurts his eyes.

Bakura glances at his father out of the corner of his eye. He's got his hands clenched on the counter edge so hard that they're white, and he's avoiding looking at his son, Kyle, and his ex-wife. Then, slowly his features turn and he, for a split second, catches Bakura's gaze. His one short look is filled with a multitude of emotions: fury, disgust, and pity.

Pity for him.

For _Bakura_.

Bakura now looks at his mother, immediately noting the look of expectancy and anxiousness on her face. She thinks he's crazy. She thinks he'll snap and go whacko and utterly destroy this "supposed-to-be picture-perfect first meeting" with Kyle, his half-brother.

Bakura thinks the woman is rather rude; she just shows up one day after only associating with him and his dad for barely a week after God knows how many years of silence with this boy who's his relative and one _fucking _year younger than him and expects the two to somehow click and get along just peachy.

Bakura snorts inwardly.

Well, that's one thing he's _sure_ won't happen.

He smiles, his lips parting to reveal nice, white teeth.

"Hey, Kyle," Bakura greets, lifting up a hand from his lap in a wave.

Kyle twists his lips in uneasiness or disgust (Bakura thinks that Kyle must think his mom is pretty low too, for making them meet like this), but he waves back nonetheless.

"Hey, Bakura."

There's awkward silence.

Kyle and Bakura's mom aren't sure where to go from here, and Bakura's father was never in this conversation in the first place, so Bakura takes the liberty of speaking for _all _of them.

"I'm surprised she hasn't abandoned _you_ yet, too."

* * *

Bakura just can't stop staring at him.

Yami is _Kyle's_ boyfriend.

Not to mention Yugi's _brother_.

He shouldn't be feeling this way about him.

But he _is_, so Bakura figures there's no point in trying to deny it any longer.

Bakura has a crush on Yami.

"Hey, I'll be right back, okay?" Kyle says, motioning towards his cell phone. "I gotta go see my friend real quick about this thing, but I'll be back in like fifteen."

Yami, seated in Bakura's living room, nods, his blonde bangs falling in front of his face. "'Kay."

Kyle waves and then scampers out of the front door.

Bakura takes this moment to slither into the living room, silent. He thinks it's funny how he has to be so stealthy in his own house, but then again, he's spying on his brother and his brother's boyfriend so he thinks he kind of _has_ to be. Biting his lower lip suddenly, he's simply standing there, admiring Yami's pretty face that's being illuminated by the moonlight coming in through the side window.

Kyle had come with Yami earlier that evening for his weekly visit that his mother made him take to "get to know Bakura better". Bakura wasn't sure how Kyle thought it was going, but Bakura thinks that he doesn't like Kyle anymore than he did when he first met him. But regardless, Bakura got bored of watching Yami and Kyle flirt and kiss for two hours and decided he'd go up to his room before coming back down fifteen minutes later because he realized he _liked_ watching Yami even if he _was_ making out with his half-brother two-thirds of the time he was observing him and he was peeking at him from behind a wall.

"I know you're there."

Yami says something, and Bakura lets out a breath he didn't even know he was holding. He starts chewing on his bottom lip.

Yami turns around. He smiles at him. Bakura's not sure if the feeling fluttering in his stomach is nausea or excitement.

Bakura nods his head.

"I'm _sure_ you did," he says, sarcastic as ever. (He loves sarcasm, even though it's considered the "lowest form of humor", which Bakura thinks is a load of crap.)

Yami stands up. He walks to the piano in the corner near the window. Bakura follows him, feeling like a zombie as he robotically saunters across the carpet in the darker room.

They stop at the piano, Bakura in front of the instrument and Yami at the keyboard.

The moonlit window right behind the bench is spilling silver onto the ivory and ebony keys, and Yami turns from looking out the window, letting his hands dance across the keys gracefully.

"Do you play?" he asks.

Bakura stares at him.

"Yeah."

"Can you play something for me?"

Bakura narrows his eyes at him. But he sits down on the cool bench.

Immediately, his hands take their rightful place on the keys, and soon the haunting melody of "Moonlight Sonata" is flowing through the house.

A quarter of the way through the song, Yami kisses him.

Bakura keeps playing, believe it or not. He's played the piece so many times before, that even though his face is currently occupied and he's not looking down at his hands, he still presses all the right spots and the song doesn't miss a beat.

It's beautiful, in a way; background music as Bakura enjoys the moment.

But the excitement doesn't last long.

Yami's tugging at his shirt, and Bakura feels excitement run through him as he kisses him deeper and then—

"Oh my God, Yami—what are you doing with _him_?"

It was the disgust and true shock as Kyle spat out the word "him" that _really_ got Bakura mad. It was as if Kyle thought he was better than Bakura.

Like Bakura was just a small little scum that wasn't worthy of anything like Kyle's time or love and _especially_ not worthy of _his_ boyfriend.

The rest of the night was kind of blurry in Bakura's memory.

Something about Yami throwing Bakura off of him, causing Bakura to fly off of the bench and crack his skull against the window pane and get a minor concussion that no one really cared about, Kyle screaming and almost attacking Bakura if it weren't for Bakura's mom who came in at that very moment shouting at Bakura how "inconsiderate" and "ridiculous" and "horrible" he was once she found out what he had just been caught doing and stopping her son from attacking him. Then it was Kyle and Bakura's mom screeching at Bakura's dad as Bakura's dad came home from "work" (More like a bar, Bakura thought) as they explained what "that _son_ of yours just did", and it was Yami (who didn't look at Bakura the rest of the time he was in the house; not once) who blamed it all on Bakura and then it was Yami and Kyle and Bakura's mom who stormed out of the home and sped away into the night, not coming back for two and a half months.

Bakura lies in the corner by the piano, still with his head resting on the window pane that he previously banged it on, eyes staring off into the darkness of the living room.

He's watching his father's still form.

Since the visitors had stormed off, his father hadn't moved or said a word at all. Even when he had been getting yelled at with accusations of his son and the way he was raising him, he remained quiet.

Finally, he walks towards his son, and hovers behind the piano bench, the only thing keeping Bakura and his father separated. The _moonlight_ can't even make Bakura's father's red eyes and tired face look better, and Bakura expects to be yanked up by the hair and chucked across the room before getting attacked numerous times, so he closes his eyes, preparing for the pain.

"We don't need them, Bakura. We're okay as we are. _You're_ okay as you are."

Bakura's father truly surprises him sometimes.

One minute he's throwing Bakura against the wall, screaming at him how he's such a burden and the next he's…_well_…saying things like _that_.

Bakura's brown eyes fly open. His father's form is gone. Bakura wonders vaguely if the whole thing was a dream.

But once again his father's words echo.

_We're okay as we are. _You're_ okay as you are._

Even thought they weren't "okay" (far from it, actually), Bakura still appreciates what his dad did. It was things like that, those few golden moments where Bakura's father showed that he loved, or at least _cared_ about, his son that made Bakura not call the police on him. Not let Mrs. Motou, Yugi's mom, dial 911 or march down to the police station whenever Bakura came over with huge bruises and deep cuts several times a week. What made him not want to attack his dad or kill him. What made him care about, give a _crap_ about, (not quite _love_, though, keep in mind) his dad.

Bakura gets up back on the piano bench and picks up where he left off in "Moonlight Sonata".

* * *

**R&R =)**


	6. Why Don't You Just Drop Dead?

**AN:** Hi guys. Still updating all the chapters I have finished in one go! Sorry if it seems a bit choppy. I originally wanted to cut it off with the ending of Bakura's past, but it seemed too short and you guys deserve a longer chapter. =)

Anyway, enjoy.

* * *

Borderline

_"A wretched soul, bruised with adversity, _

_We bid be quiet when we hear it cry; _

_But were we burdened with like weight or pain,_

_As much or more we ourselves complain."_

_-William Shakespeare_

* * *

**06 ; Why Don't You Just Drop Dead?**

* * *

**DISCLAIMER: **I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh!, and this storyline is absolutely, positively fictional. I mean no offense to anyone.

* * *

Bakura is lying on his bedroom floor again, his ear pressed to the ground, trying to hear through the wood. Finally, he picks up some of Kyle's shouting,

"Why is it always about _him_, huh? _Why_? Why is that freakin' _p__sycho_ always coming first?"

"Because of the fact he _is_ a freakin' psycho!" his mother shouts back, and Bakura is not surprised that he doesn't feel a stab of pain or anger at that comment.

He hasn't been feeling much lately.

He calls it "apathetic". Yugi calls it "uncaring". Either way, Bakura's having trouble feeling.

When Yami kissed him that night and he kissed Yami back and Kyle walked in on the two Bakura didn't feel regret. In fact, he felt proud and pleased with himself that he succeeded in getting his brother angry. He didn't like Kyle; making Kyle upset made him happy.

When Yami completely brushed him off and blamed him as soon as Bakura's mom walked in and she and Kyle starting shouting at Yami about the situation, Bakura didn't feel hurt. In fact, he just started hating Yami. Now, months later, Bakura can't even remember what he found even _remotely_ attractive about him.

He wasn't really anything special; just an attractive guy with crazy hair. He looked a lot like his brother, Yugi, which Bakura found a bit _disturbing_ when he really thought about it, because Yugi was his _best friend_.

Bakura sometimes wonders if he really _is _crazy.

He thinks maybe he _does_ cause more trouble than he's worth, sometimes. Sometimes. Most of the time he loves the thrill and the reactions of all the things he causes and doesn't give a second thought to how it might be affecting others.

But now it's apparently gotten so bad that they're going to send him off. To a place called Rockford Psychiatric Hospital.

And God knows Bakura's _never_ going to let that happen. He'll _die_ before he's shipped off to some loony bin and looses his freedom.

He sits up to a cross-legged position and looks down at the items arranged neatly in front of him. In the darkness of the room, with only shadows of the full moon's light and the light from the hallway streaming through the crack at the bottom of his door can he barely see the neatly, five-in-a-row arranged, light blue Aspirin pills. The almost-empty bottle of vodka sits next to them.

Bakura twists his lips.

He gulps.

He never liked taking Aspirin. The taste of the medication made him sick. It tasted so…chemical-ly, artificial. It was too easy to know that you were stuffing your bloodstream up with drugs that would dull your senses and make life easier for you. Bakura didn't like that. He didn't like not taking things as they were. If Bakura was going to live, he was going to live. There wasn't going to be any "dulling" of his experiences or feelings.

That's why he thinks he likes the idea that he might be crazy. Crazy lets him live without blinders on. Lets him see the world the way it _should_ be seen. How things _really_ are. Lets him say what no one else would say but what everyone absolutely knows is _true_.

_One._

Bakura pops the blue pill into his mouth, cringing at the nasty taste. He moves it to the far back of his mouth with his tongue; he's going to need a lot of room.

_Two Three. Four._

Bakura plops the pills in his mouth one by one, taking them to his lips from their neatly arranged rows one by one. One by one.

As the pills go in, Bakura thinks.

On _ten_ the first thing that comes to mind is Yugi.

Yugi is Bakura's only friend. Yugi is sweet, charming, but more devious than he looks. Only with Bakura is he ever truly the little rebel inside of him.

Bakura thinks that Yugi's probably the thing he'll miss the most, and he was the one thing that _might have_ kept him from doing this.

But then he remembers the looks Yugi gives him sometimes. The looks of disbelief, disappointment, horror, pity.

And Bakura's _angry_.

Bakura also knows that Yugi has a bunch of other friends because Yugi is nice and friendly and _normal_.

He won't be missed, Bakura knows. Yugi will get over Bakura in less than a year, more than likely.

_Twenty-five. _

_Forget_ Kyle and his mother.

They're two pretentious, horrible hypocrites Bakura wants nothing to do with and never cared about.

_Thirty._

His dad. Sure, he knew his dad had problems. He knew his dad probably needed Bakura there more than he let on, but then Bakura remembers all the shouts of "worthless" and "if I never kept that kid…" and Bakura knows his dad doesn't matter and won't miss him, either.

He's running out of room in his mouth, so he stops on forty.

Forty chemical-tasting, light blue, Aspirin tablets are stuffed in his mouth.

Bakura pauses.

He stares at a shadow of a leaf on the wall.

Bakura's bored.

Bored with life.

There's not much left to do, really. There's not much to live for except more than likely getting thrown into an insane asylum or dealing with unfixable, stressful family problems or living with people that don't _really_ love him.

So Bakura picks up the cool glass vodka bottle, pops open the lid, lets the sick but familiar smell hit him, and then he puts it up to his lips and dips his head back.

The liquid flows down his throat and he gags.

It's burning; it burns and makes him want to throw up and the pills are getting stuck in his throat and he can't really breathe and his pulse is quickening.

But finally, the fortieth pill is forced down his throat as he takes one last gulp of the alcohol and he lets the bottle fall from his lips and hands. It craHes to the carpet, but it's such a short distance and it's made of such a thick glass that it doesn't shatter.

Bakura's slightly disappointed at that.

He would have enjoyed the shrill sound of glass breaking to mingle with the sick sounds of his relatives downstairs fighting and he would have _loved_ to get a few slices from glass shards on his hands and knees before he dies.

But he just sits and waits.

He's not sure _how_ long Death will take to come, but he's sure that it'll take _at least _fifteen minutes. So he taps his fingers idly to some unknown beat on his kneecap and is quiet.

But the worst thing with the waiting is that he's left with the absolutely repulsive, noisome taste of vodka in his mouth.

It's horrendous.

He has _no_ idea why his father loves it so much, but even more than that, he can't figure out _why_ his father loves it more than his _only child_.

Finally things start getting blurry.

Bakura's stomach churns.

Bakura's heart pounds.

Bakura's head aches.

Bakura starts shaking.

"I'm getting him, all right? God!

Kyle's voice echoes from outside the hallway and Bakura feels a quick rush of excitement. Or panic. He's not sure which.

The door opens, light spills in, too much light, and Bakura shrinks back.

Kyle stands there, his body shadowed by the hallway light behind him, hand on the doorknob. He's staring at Bakura with a look Bakura can't (or doesn't feel like) reading.

"Come downstairs," he orders.

Bakura stares at Kyle; then he falls over sideways.

"Bakura, seriously."

Bakura doesn't move; he can't really move, because now his muscles feel like jelly.

"…Bakura? Come on, this isn't funny."

Bakura hears Kyle walking over, and then he feels his half-brother's presence hovering over him and he knows Kyle spots the ten Aspirin tablets still neatly arranged and the empty liquor bottle on the ground because he cries,

"Oh my God, you _idiot_!"

Then Kyle's footsteps rush to the doorway.

"Mom, call 911!" he hollers in a horrified voice.

Bakura doesn't remember anymore after that point, because he figures he finally passed out, but he does remember, for a split second, before his stomach gave one last heave and his head one last throb, thinking that his family's gonna have a hard time figuring this one out.

But then he remembers the note he left under the Aspirin bottle next to his leg. It will explain everything. He remembers what he wrote; what he wrote in his fluid, surprising cursive.

_I had a headache._

_

* * *

_

Bakura never, ever wants to get his stomach pumped again.

The unnatural sloshing together of stomach tissue made him want to gag more than the vodka even did (and that's saying something).

And of course, having the tube stuck down his throat wasn't too pleasant, either.

But Bakura thinks the worst part was definitely when Yugi, his mom and dad, Kyle, and the hospital psychiatrist walked into his room, crowding around his bedside, everyone's faces housing a different emotion.

Yugi's violet eyes were puffy; he had been crying.

His dad was staring down at him stone-coldly; he thought his son was an idiot for doing this, no doubt.

His mother had her lips pursed together in distaste; She really thought he was crazy now.

Kyle was glaring at him; poor Kyle. Bakura was getting all his attention, now.

Bakura had let a lot of people down.

He tried. He really did. But no regret came.

Then there was the psychiatrist.

The psychiatrist wasn't looking at Bakura; He was looking at a clipboard.

Then she spoke, and what she said Bakura already anticipated coming out of her mouth.

"Bakura, you're going to Rockford."

* * *

Ryou gets out of bed somewhat reluctantly.

The only reason he really even gets up is because the sun's _really_ shining through the blinds now and hurting his eyes even when he closes them.

And, also, he doesn't want to feel lazy.

For some reason, whenever Ryou sits still for more than fifteen minutes and doesn't fall asleep he feels lazy and _imperfect_ and thinks that he's wasting away his life just sitting and/or lying there when he could be doing so much.

He knows thinking that's irrational. He knows it's not true. But he still _thinks_ it. He still _feels_ it.

And that's what really matters, right?

Not to mention the fact he feels like he needs to get out into the ward and explore and socialize because the _la_s_t_ thing he wants to do it get out there and find out that something exciting happened and that he missed it. Because then he'd feel lost and confused as everyone else chattered about it, and he feels awkward enough already _without_ having missed some big newsflash being cooked up with all these psychos.

His feet sling over the side of his small bed and quickly touch the cool tile. He shivers.

Back at home, there's a big navy blue rug covering his wood floors so he doesn't have to deal with cold feet every morning. But here, in this place, it's all tiled, linoleum floor. There's no warm relief of rugs or carpets.

For the first time since he's arrived at Rockford, Ryou Bakura feels homesick.

But then, he remembers how his parents just dumped him here, completely inconsiderate of _his_ feelings, and then he really isn't that homesick anymore.

Shrugging off his morning muses as quickly as he can, he awkwardly shuffles over to his suitcase and pulls out some clothes. He smiles to himself as he pulls the white shirt over his head and squeezes into some jeans. Then, he runs a hand through his hair to get it nice and smooth like he likes it and thinks he's probably going to need to cut or style it differently sooner or later.

* * *

Ryou steps out into the hallway and looks around.

A few guards or nurses or whatever they're called are down the hall talking. They don't notice Ryou standing in the doorway.

As far as Ryou can see, none of his fellow patients are around. Neither is Duke.

He starts walking down the corridor towards the far rooms.

Ryou ignores the voice in his head warning that "curiosity killed the cat", and decides he wants to see Bakura.

He knows Bakura's in seclusion because he remembers Bakura's howling and fighting _because_ of Tommy ordering him to be put there. But Ryou's not sure _why_ he actually wants to see him. It's not like he feels pity (far from that actually), but he just wants to _know_. He wants to _know_ what they do to someone like Bakura. Someone as crazy and dangerous as Bakura.

And then, to be completely honest, Ryou is _also_ curious to see what Bakura is like the morning after something like the insane escapade he threw last night.

The seclusion room's door is open once he arrives at the end of the hall.

Ryou doesn't walk fully in front of it, because then it'd be too easy for him to get caught. He just ducks behind the wall and peers around into the doorway, watching.

Duke is there.

Duke is kneeling on the ground in front of someone. Duke moves a bit, and then Ryou can finally see whom it is Duke is attending to.

Ryou never expected someone as seemingly heartless and psycho to make him feel anything but anger or fear. But as soon as he caught sight of Bakura, stick thin, ghost white, exhausted-looking Bakura, sitting on the ground pathetically, he gulped. He gulped and decided he would never, _ever _be like him.

Bakura's hair was tangled and messy and fell in front of his eyes limply. His entire frame was so ridiculously tiny that Ryou could safely conclude had never seen anything that skinny in his life. He looked like he hadn't eaten in weeks; the white hospital-type outfit he was wearing was hanging off of his shoulders and looked kind of like a parachute as it dangled off of him. His skin was a yellowish-white, and dark purple bags were under his eyes.

He looked like a cancer patient that had been undergoing chemo for a year and a half, which was not really what Ryou expected, truth be told.

And _then_, after scanning his body, there was the matter of his eyes.

They were dead.

The best adjective for them was just that: dead, lifeless, deceased, departed.

Gone.

Ryou could see they were a very pretty color, a dark red-brown sort of shade. They were big and almond-shaped, too.

But they were just gone. As beautiful as they appeared, they were gone.

Ryou also thought, though, that it was almost as if they _had been _alive. Like, at one time Bakura _was_ living. Ryou could see that his eyes knew and witnessed a lot. _A lot_.

Too much.

His eyes had seen _too much_.

And because of that, Ryou figured, they were now like bottomless black holes that held no escape. Like a warning that if you got to know Bakura well enough, you'd be thrown into a violent storm of painful memories and impulsiveness that you could never quite get out of.

Ryou planned on _never _setting foot in that storm.

Duke suddenly reaches forward and wipes a cut on Bakura's cheek with a cotton ball, but Bakura pulls away and refuses to look at Duke again so Duke just kneels there a little more and says something to him before Bakura hesitates and nods weakly and Duke finally stands up. Then Duke turns around and starts to walk out.

Ryou ducks behind the wall and tries to look like he wasn't spying on them.

He hears the seclusion room door shut, and Duke sigh deeply before appearing. He spots Ryou, and a small but tired smile pops up on his face.

"Ryou," he starts as happily as he can. "Good morning."

The corner of Ryou's mouth turns up a little bit. "Yeah,"

Ryou discreetly peers around the wall again and looks.

There's only a small, rectangular window on the seclusion room door, and he surprises himself when he finds he's kind of annoyed that even with that small window, he can't see Bakura.

* * *

**Revieeeews :D**


	7. So Glad We Finally Get To Talk

**AN: **Okay guys, this is as far as I've got with totally completed chapters, the next ones will come at a rate of _at least_ one a week though, okay? =)**  
**

**

* * *

**

Borderline

_"You never get a second chance to make a first impression."_

_-__Unknown _

* * *

**07 ; So Glad We Get To Finally Talk**

* * *

**DISCLAIMER: **I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh!, and this storyline is absolutely, positively fictional. I mean no offense to anyone.

* * *

They don't allow serrated knives at mealtime.

Too much of a "potential threat".

The only knives patients in Ward 227 are allowed to use are smooth, plastic butter knives. That little fact makes it very hard for Ryou to cut his pancakes at breakfast, so eventually, after at least fifteen minutes of struggling with the knife and finally attacking his meal with his fork, Ryou gives up and just decides on watching everyone else.

He's sitting alone at a table by the buffet.

When Ryou's family went out to eat or when he went to eat with his friends, his favorite places to go were buffets. He just loved how there was so much variety to choose from and how it was all so loose and free and fun. And here, at Rockford, they _try _to make mealtimes fun but fail miserably because eating isn't that fun with a bunch of guards stalking around watching your every move. And, the food variety isn't all that great, either.

Suddenly, Ryou chuckles as he watches his fellow patients eat.

Yugi is neatly arranging his food into separate, perfect portions not touching one another. Scrambled eggs are in a tiny yellow heap on one side while the sausage is cut into even, small, circular bites on the other, and the bacon is resting nicely on the one last available plate corner up top. Then, once his food is nicely arranged, he wipes off the rim of his orange juice glass a bit, fixes his somehow out-of-place napkin and fork, and smiles contentedly.

The exact opposite of Yugi is Seto, who is sitting across from Yugi and picking at his eggs with a disgusted look on his features. He's already spilled half of his orange juice, a couple pieces of sausage are sprawled around him on the table, and a huge, way-more-than-needed blob of ketchup covers his barely visible bacon. Finally, after one last poke at the scrambled eggs, Seto throws his fork down in frustration and the eggs splatter everywhere along with ketchup.

"Everywhere", of course, meaning mostly Yugi.

Yugi glares at Seto for messing up his breakfast setting and covering him with food, and Seto laughs really loud and leans back in his chair despite the fact that he himself is covered in eggs and ketchup, as well.

Joey is sitting between the two, and wasn't really hit with the bombardment of breakfast food. He's quietly switching looks between the groaning and whining Yugi and the hysterical Seto, all the while mixing his sausage and eggs together in one big pile. Then, he takes a big bite as soon as Seto's shut up and Yugi has sighed in defeat.

Ryou suddenly realizes that Tristan isn't sitting with them.

Curiously, he begins to look around, and oh-so-conveniently, Tristan happens to be scanning the buffet near Ryou right then and there.

He's staring down at the food, with only a cup of coffee in hand. He looks exhausted. Finally, he turns to a guard standing next to the buffet and asks,

"Where's the green jello?"

The guard smiles weakly. "Tristan, you know we don't have green jello right now. It's breakfast time."

Tristan glares. "Even if it _wasn't_ breakfast time, you guys _still _wouldn't have the fuckin' green jello," he sneers.

Ryou tilts his head.

"Tristan, we'll get it…"

BANG.

Suddenly, the tray of eggs and sausage is sprawled on the floor, its contents all over. Tristan's coffee mug is slammed down on the buffet table and he screams,

"YOU GUYS _NEVER _HAVE THE `EFFING GREEN JELLO!"

Ryou really, _really _tries hard not to laugh as Tristan takes the last tray of bacon and tosses that on the ground with a horrible clatter, too, before screeching one more time in fury and frustration and storming off, leaving a mess and many bewildered faces.

* * *

There are puppets.

In the corner of the TV room, there's a small cardboard box.

It's filled with puppets.

Some are sock puppets. Some are marionettes. Some are hand puppets. There are bright blue and yellow and orange and red and green and every other color under the sun puppets sitting in that box with big, frightening smiles just waiting to be picked up and played with.

Ryou peers in and shivers.

He_ hates_ puppets.

He feels like that's what he was supposed to be. Brought up to be.

A puppet.

A puppet of his parents' wishes and a puppet to be controlled by what his parents taught him and a puppet to society because society was supposed to mold him and establish what he was going to be.

And that's why Ryou tries his hardest to be so unconventional. He doesn't want to be a puppet.

Suddenly, he feels a hands poke at his side and he jumps.

Turning and glaring, he catches sight of Seto Kaiba sitting with a smirk on the couch behind him, cross-legged. His arms are folded in his lap. He tilts his head.

"You know, I have a reoccurring nightmare about one of those puppets."

Ryou is wordless.

"It's that really freaky soldier one with the dark eyes and red feather hat."

Ryou thought that marionette was really creepy, too. But of course, he doesn't say that.

"It cuts my fingers off one by one and then suffocates me."

Ryou blinks.

Seto yawns. He leans back lazily onto the cushions and looks at the ceiling.

"The shrinks try to analyze and help me understand that dream a lot," he says. Then, he shakes his head. "But you can't _explain_ something like that. Not really."

Seto turns and stares at Ryou again.

"You weren't gonna _play_ with them, were you?"

Ryou is quiet at first. Then, he finally mutters,

"No."

Seto smiles.

"Good. Only one person in the ward plays with those things, and he probably wouldn't be too happy if _you_ started using them, too," he explains, and Ryou opens his mouth to ask who Seto is talking about, but Seto cuts him off.

"And, of course, we don't need _you_ getting nightmares, too."

* * *

Ryou is told later that afternoon that his first session of therapy is at five o'clock.

So, it is currently 4:50 and Ryou is sitting patiently in a plastic chair across from the couch with Duke standing on one side and Yugi in another chair on the other.

Yugi looks at Ryou.

"Therapy isn't that bad, you know."

Ryou stays still and silent.

"The sooner you open up to them, the faster you get outta here."

Ryou sighs softly, getting annoyed.

"You—"

"Hey, Yugi, I think that's enough," Duke interrupts finally, probably noticing Ryou's rising irritation.

Ryou looks up at him and smiles a little.

Duke doesn't smile back.

Suddenly, Yugi gets up quickly. Without a word to Duke or Ryou, he walks off towards the Art Room.

Footsteps are heard shortly after Yugi's fade.

But, the weird thing is, Seto is sitting down and zoning out to TV, Tristan is in his room, and Joey is playing "Concentration" with himself and a deck of cards absentmindedly so there's no one else to be walking down the hall except—

He's wearing a dark blue t-shirt with black stripes.

His jeans were probably originally black, but have now faded to a dark blue-gray.

He's not wearing shoes, only sock feet.

He's got a bandage wrapped around his upper arm, and a band-aid on his other wrist.

His bangs are falling to one side, covering his eye almost, but leaving the other one perfectly exposed to shine in all its contradictory red-brown glory.

He looks a bit less yellow-pale, but he's still friggin' skinny. He is also fairly tall.

His hair is messy and sticks out in irregular angles.

He walks with a confident stride and a smirk. Like he owns the ward.

And Bakura really just might.

He stops suddenly at Tristan's room's door, which is right near the TV room. He bangs on it and leans against the frame, waiting patiently. Ryou is surprised he doesn't just barge in.

No reply comes from behind the door.

He bangs on the wood again.

"GET OUT OF MY _ROOM_, Bakura!"

The shout rings from behind the door shortly after the second knock, and obviously Tristan's infamous temper has acted up. It's amazing, Ryou notes, how Tristan seemed to know right away the visitor knocking was Bakura.

Bakura smirks devilishly at the response Tristan gives and doesn't seem angered at all.

"I'm not _in_ your room, Tristan," Bakura sarcastically says, and Ryou thinks Bakura's voice is actually really attractive. _Especially_ since it's not shouting threats at him this time.

"GET THE F—"

"Ah, ah, ah, Tristan. Language," Bakura interrupts mockingly, and his smirk grows.

Finally, a nearby guard who Ryou knows is named Jared lets out a breath of frustration at just the right time, knowing sooner or later it'll get ugly between Bakura and Tristan if he doesn't interfere. "Bakura, come on. Leave him alone," Jared orders.

Bakura doesn't protest but keeps his mischievous grin as he lets the guard grab his arm and pull him away from Tristan's door.

"Hey there, Jared," Bakura casually starts a conversation as if nothing happened when they begin to move into the TV room, smirking even more. " Didn't get a chance to see you last night when I got back. How are things going?"

Jared gets a small smile on his face and tries to hide it.

"Fine," Jared answers politely.

"Aw c'mon, that's not a good enough answer," Bakura prompts coyly, and raises an eyebrow. "You just turned _twenty-one_, man. That's more than `fine'."

Jared rolls his eyes. "My birthday went great. I ate way too much cake, and I sugar-crashed halfway through my party."

Ryou can't really tell if Jared is joking.

Bakura doesn't seem to care either way and lets out a huge laugh, throwing his head back. "That's great, man," he says, and smiles. "Hey, we'll talk more later, okay? You gotta tell me about the new stuff you scored for presents."

Jared smiles and laughs a little. "All right. Stay outta trouble, you hear?" he warns, and then at Bakura's shrug, accepts the answer and walks off down the hall.

Bakura takes a deep breath in and begins to scan the TV room occupants.

Ryou realizes Duke is gone from his side. To where Duke went, Ryou doesn't know.

The corner of Bakura's mouth turns up a little bit and a playful glint lights up his brown eyes as he catches sight of Seto, who has now gone back to watching TV. Before, he had been watching the whole drama with Bakura and Tristan unfold before it was stopped.

"Kaiba!" Bakura exclaims. "What's up?"

Bakura saunters over then plops down on the sofa, sprawling onto Seto's lap, obviously not caring about personal boundaries. Seto pauses only for a moment, and then looks down at Bakura, and even Ryou can't help but smile a little as he sees the adorable little smug grin the younger boy has plastered on his face as he stares up at Seto.

Bakura folds his arms neatly across his chest. "I'm _so_ much more interesting than the Food Network, aren't I?"

Seto chuckles. "Sure thing, Bakura," he says, and rolls his eyes.

Bakura sits up. His face is but inches away from Seto's, and he sticks out his chin a bit, still with that smug smirk. "So good to be back, Seto. Really."

Seto sighs, flicking Bakura's hair playfully. "Well it's good to have you back, 'Kura."

Ryou tries hard not to smile more at the nickname and tries even harder not to laugh at Seto's apparent happiness at the return of Bakura.

He doesn't really know how _anyone_ could be happy about the return of someone like Bakura.

Then, Bakura scampers off of Seto's lap and then the sofa as soon as he sees Joey across the way, still playing "Concentration", but now with small glances at the two boys on the couch here and there.

"Winning?" Bakura asks, kneeling down to Joey's eye level as soon as he arrives at the table.

Joey smiles a little.

"Yes. It's not that hard of a game to play once you get the hang of it. There's a trick, you know. Do you want to know the trick, Bakura? I'm really good at it. Like, I practice a lot and I've taught a lot of people and it really works," Joey sputters out.

Bakura stares at the man wordlessly.

Suddenly, Joey completely changes gears and blurts,

"Why did you leave, Bakura?"

The tension in the air is suddenly so thick Ryou squirms.

But Bakura, seemingly ever cool, (Psh. Yeah right, Ryou thinks, recalling last night's incident) simply sweetly smiles and answers,

"I got bored."

Joey nods, seemingly understanding (even though Ryou knows he really doesn't understand) and then turns back to his cards.

"I wanna play now. Leave me alone, please," he orders, and Bakura shrugs and stands up.

* * *

Ryou's heart starts to pound.

He knew it was coming. And now that it's finally here, he's not sure how he's going to handle it.

Bakura is going to see him and come over. Whether or not Bakura will talk, attack him, or something else he doesn't want to imagine, Ryou is not sure. But he knows the encounter's going to be uncomfortable.

Bakura turns around. Immediately, his dark eyes latch on to Ryou's chocolate colored.

Hostility in the look is only partially present, to Ryou's surprise. A little bit of hostility is there, along with some confusion, far too much confidence, mischievousness, and, believe it or not, curiousness.

The two keep the stare for a good couple minutes, until finally Bakura's face breaks into a tiny, sinister smile that makes Ryou squirm just a little bit.

He starts to walk over.

As soon as he's in front of Ryou, Bakura reaches out and grabs a chair, turning it backwards so that he'll face Ryou and plopping into it. He folds his arms across the top, and leans forward a little so that he's closer to the other boy.

There's a silence, then. It's not so much awkward as it is a competitive, observing kind of silence.

Ryou and Bakura both have egos. Ryou and Bakura both know that the other _has_ an ego, and Ryou and Bakura are officially competing with one another to see who is more worthy of the ego.

Bakura's smirk grows.

"Nice book."

Ryou looks down. He notices the long forgotten novel Stephen King novel sitting next to him, remembering he had brought the book to occupy his time while waiting for therapy. He looks back up, his expression unchanging.

"It was kind of morbid," Bakura says. There's a pause. "I loved it."

Ryou nods oh-so slightly.

Bakura narrows his eyes a bit and takes a deep breath in, relaxing more in the chair, falling back a bit.

"So…you had Sampson yet?"

Ryou raises an eyebrow.

"_Who_?"

Bakura laughs.

He begins flipping through it sloppily, his eyes quickly scanning the paper. "Mary-Beth Sampson is head therapist here and more importantly works exclusively with us. The `special cases ward'." Bakura takes a bitter breath in and Ryou sees that his mouth twists a little in distaste. "She's even more psycho than us."

Ryou blinks.

Bakura looks up from the novel and freezes, staring at the other boy and waiting for a response he won't get.

"So…" he finally prods after a minute or more of silence. "Do you have the Wicked Witch of the Mental Institution or not?"

Suddenly, Duke appears seemingly out of nowhere and says,

"Bakura, don't talk about Dr. Sampson that way."

Ryou isn't sure if he's thankful to Duke for showing up or annoyed.

Bakura tilts his head back. He smiles at Duke.

"Hey there Devlin old pal," he greets. "You playing tour guide for our new little buddy's visit?"

Duke doesn't crack even a small smile.

"Ryou has Dr. Potts in five minutes," Duke explains, obviously trying to prevent Bakura from going off on another nasty, weird ramble about the other therapist or causing more trouble with another topic.

Bakura snaps his head back to face Ryou. He has that small smirk on again.

"Oh, the balding guy who smells like Death and vomit. You'll have fun with him."

"Bakura!" Duke cries suddenly. "Stop it!"

Bakura rolls his eyes exaggeratedly and spins around in the chair. "Oh what are _you_ gonna do to me Devlin? _You_, Mr. Laidback-It's-All-Cool?" he challenges. "You aren't tough at all. You don't have the guts to follow through. That's why your lovely little girlfriend dumped you two months ago for the _college dean's son _who she was cheating on you with for the past year and a half of your ex-relationship anyway," Bakura teases, and Ryou watches emotionless at the scene unfolding before him as he hears Joey gasp a little in the corner. Bakura then smirks, and leans forward closer to Duke. "You won't do a _thing_, Devlin," he finishes nastily.

All eyes are on the other man.

Duke glares, and Ryou sees from his eyes that he's inwardly seething, but he remains ever calm on the outside and simply sighs heavily.

Bakura raises an eyebrow.

"Hmm, Duke? Why don't you answer me?" he prods on.

Ryou sees Seto and Joey out of the corner of his eye staring at the three of them uneasily, Seto's mouth open a little in shock.

Bakura and Duke stare at each other for a long while, Bakura with a challenging, spiteful look on his face and Duke with a well concealed disgusted and angered look.

Duke finally opens his mouth, but then Jared walks back into the TV room right at that moment and Bakura bends backward and suddenly exclaims,

"Hey, when's my checkup? I've been waiting for like six fucking hours!"

Jared turns.

"It's _now_," he answers, and walks back out of the room.

Bakura twists his lips thoughtfully. Then, he turns around back to face Ryou.

"Well, I have to go. It's been oh-so lovely chatting with you though," he says, and Ryou warily nods in acknowledgment. He pats the top of the chair a couple times and stands up, twisting the seat around and placing it back where it was before. Then, he turns to Duke and gives the older man a cocky smirk.

"See ya later, Duke," he suavely says, and Duke swallows.

But before he leaves the room completely, he turns around again and pauses, staring at Ryou wordlessly.

Ryou shifts in his seat.

"What?" he finally asks, getting a bit annoyed.

Bakura nods his head once.

"Hey, don't worry, okay? You'll graduate to Miss Mary-Beth Sampson soon enough. You'll go so _friggin'_ crazy here they won't have a choice but to put you in the most advanced, hardcore therapy," he says, and then smiles. "It'll be fun. Promise."

Then, he turns on his heel and walks out without another word.

Thus ended Ryou's first real encounter with Bakura.

* * *

**Oooooh, reviewsssss =)**


	8. Gimmie a Call

**AN: **Thank you all so much for the amazing feedback I got! It really means a lot. Now, I have this story written up already to a pretty far point, so I decided to post this chapter early for you guys (since I have a lot of this story written up, it also means that I should be pretty consistent with updates, which is always good.)

**Also a note to Salience Is - Thanks for pointing out the previous chapter mistakes (Which I fixed by the way.) Bound to be a couple when you write fanfiction at all hours of the morning haha. I'll try to avoid those in the future =)**

More puppets in this chapter! Read on, everyone.

* * *

Borderline

_"I do not have a psychiatrist and I do not want one, for the simple reason that if he listened to me long enough, he might become disturbed."_

_-James Thurber_

* * *

**08 ; Gimmie A Call**

* * *

**DISCLAIMER: **I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh!, and this storyline is absolutely, positively fictional. I mean no offense to anyone.

* * *

Ryou is walking with Duke to Dr. Melvin Potts's office at three-minutes-to-five and blurts out,

"What was her name?"

Duke continues to stare ahead wordlessly, but Ryou notices his face hardens imperceptibly. Finally, the older man swallows. He replies with a forced nonchalant tone,

"Who?"

"The girl who slept with some other guy to get up the college social ladder and dumped you," Ryou elaborates.

Duke, for the first time at Rockford, shoots his head to the side and gives Ryou a death-cold look.

"Don't you _ever_ talk about her like that again, you hear me?" he sneers, and Ryou blinks.

There's silence. Ryou isn't intimidated easily, although Duke being that harsh with him is a surprise and _does_ make Ryou crack his knuckles once in uneasiness.

Finally, Duke speaks.

"Her name was Miranda. I loved her. A lot," Duke tells, "But apparently she didn't return the feelings," he finishes, and gulps.

Ryou simply continues watching Duke, silently urging him to say more. Duke notices this, because he turns to Ryou, narrows his eyes a little, and says,

"That's it."

Ryou knows Duke is lying, but he doesn't have time to pester him about the topic any longer, because the duo has arrived at Melvin Potts's door. So reluctantly, Ryou goes in.

But not before he catches Duke muttering under his breath,

"I should have never said a word."

* * *

"I'm not crazy."

"I never implied that you were."

"I'm living in a mental institution. It's been more than just _implied_."

"Well, we're here to help you so no one will imply that you're crazy ever again."

"I told you, I'm not crazy."

"That has nothing to do with what I just said."

"Yes it does. If I was crazy, I would _need_ to be in here. I would _need_ to get help. But I'm not and I don't so I'll just be leaving—"

"Ryou, sit back down."

Pause. A shuffle of feet.

"Good. Now, I think that—"

"Do you like hot dogs?"

"…Excuse me, Ryou?"

"Hot dogs."

"Don't try and change the subject."

"_I_ for one think they are completely unhealthy and simply—"

"Ryou! Focus! Tell me how you feel right now."

"…How I feel?"

"Yes."

"Well, right now I feel pretty PO'd."

"Why?"

"Why do _you_ think, idiot?"

"Ryou, don't be sarcastic, and I don't appreciate being called `an idiot'. I'm a doctor and far from an idiot."

"Whatever."

"Do you have any strong interests in anything, Ryou? Any hobbies, things…"

"Music."

"Oh that's nice. What do you play?"

"Everything, pretty much."

"Everything?"

"Yes."

"So you play the harpsichord? The vibraphone? The ukulele?"

"No."

"Well than you don't play `everything'."

"Fine, Mr. Let's-Get-Technical. So are we _done_ yet?"

"No, Ryou, we have thirty-five more minutes."

"_Great_."

"Ryou, it won't be so ba—"

"What's wrong with Bakura?"

"Pardon?"

"Bakura. What is his friggin' _problem_? He's psycho!"

"I can't—"

"Seto, then. How long has he been in here?"

"I—"

"Yugi? Joey?"

"Ryou, I can't talk to you about other patients' confidential information."

"Well than you're really_ boring_."

A sigh.

"Ryou…"

"You're welcome."

This was how Ryou and Dr. Potts's first therapy session went.

They didn't really get anything done, as Ryou likes to think on his way back from the shrink's room. He has a smug little smirk on and is proudly holding his head up high with his hands stuffed into his jean pockets.

As far as he was concerned, these detestable people weren't going to ever get a thing from him. Not one lick of his inner thoughts or feelings.

Never.

Ever, _ever_.

He's walking down the hall to the TV room to relax before `bedtime medication' AKA `sleeping pills' when Jared calls out from behind the nurses' station,

"Ryou, phone's for you."

Ryou blinks and restrains a sigh.

Last night his father called at about this time to check up on him after his first day, and Ryou expects him to have called again tonight. He's not looking forward to that, because their conversations go something like this:

"Ryou, how are you?"

"In a mental institution. And yourself?"

Ryou just can't resist using that sarcasm of his.

"I'm good, Son," his dad says.

"...Made any new friends?" he adds.

Ryou stifles a laugh because of _course_ he's made _loads_ of new friends at this mental hospital on his first day.

"Yup," he says, acting chipper.

"That's good. All right, be good. We'll see you this weekend when we go in and talk with Dr. Potts!" his father croons, and Ryou rolls his eyes.

"Of course, Dad, see you there," he says, his actual feelings not showing up at all in his voice.

"Bye!"

So of course Ryou walks as slowly as he can to the ringing phone booth to his left. Finally, he clambers in and sits as comfortably as he can on top of the little wooden bench they built off of the wall. He picks up the phone with a bored,

"Hello?"

"So what's your diag-nonsense?"

The unfamiliar voice surprises Ryou, and he knits his eyebrows. Shifting a bit uneasily, he replies,

"Who's this?"

Suddenly, hearing a low knock on the back of his wooden phone booth, he peers his head outside behind him and catches sight of Bakura's head stuck out of the phone booth up against his. The other boy's face breaks into a mischievous grin and Ryou can't help but return the act as Bakura whispers into the phone he's holding,

"Hello there."

Ryou takes a breath in and returns,

"Hey. I don't know my `problem' yet. Dr Potts didn't tell me."

Bakura nods, but of course Ryou can't see that so he says instead,

"Yeah. No surprise. Guy usually falls asleep during sessions. At least he did always with me."

There's a pause, and then Bakura chuckles.

"But that's because I _purposely _made myself boring and closed so he couldn't ask or have anything to talk to me about," he explains, and Ryou smiles a little.

Then, Bakura's tone gets completely serious as he says to Ryou,

"Listen, don't fucking give in. They'll pester you and instigate you and try and get stuff out of you but _don't_."

He hesitates. Ryou bites his lower lip, honestly surprised at Bakura's outburst of kind-of-helpful information.

"Don't tell them. Don't tell. Because once they have your thoughts, your secrets, _your mind_, they'll kill you. They'll kill who you really are because they can't stand that you're non-conforming and exactly what they don't want," he says. Then a small smile is in his voice when he whispers, "You're different. I can tell."

Ryou gulps a little.

"Why are you telling me this?"

Bakura's smile grows and becomes more evident in his voice when he says,

"Because I don't want to lose the only person most like me."

* * *

Needless to say, Bakura's phone call and little comment made Ryou a little uneasy the next day.

Bakura was cooked up in seclusion, though, as far as he knew, so thankfully he didn't have to associate with the boy. So instead, he occupied himself with Yugi.

He and the small boy sit at the TV room table with checkers and Yugi steals two of Ryou's red before saying,

"He's only nineteen."

Ryou doesn't look up from the board as he makes his next checkers move and asks,

"Who?"

"Bakura," Yugi simply answers.

Ryou nods.

"He looks young. He looks a little bit like me, too."

Yugi laughs, and then smiles a little.

"Yeah, he does."

Ryou looks up as Yugi's reaching to make his next game move.

"Why do you tell me so much about Bakura?"

Yugi narrows his eyes a little.

"Well, `cause you asked."

Ryou doesn't break his gaze from Yugi's and eventually the intense silence causes Yugi to give in and he reveals,

"Because I don't want you to _hurt_ him."

Yugi's face is completely straight but his light purple eyes glimmer with sadness as he says it.

Ryou takes an unnoticeable breath in.

"How would I—?" he starts, but is cut off.

"People don't understand him like I do. They just don't. Even though we've all been here with him for years now, no one really gets him like me. He's misunderstood. He scares people. And because of that, he gets in trouble and hurt. And I _don't_ want another person to come in here and cause him to get hurt just `cause of some misunderstandings, so I'm going to try and enlighten those who might not get him that well as best I can to prevent that," Yugi explains, narrowing his eyes a little bit at the end, obviously referring to Ryou. Then, he pauses before adding quietly,

"And, of course, you're a_ heck of a__ lot_ like him."

Ryou blinks at Yugi's words, and then narrows his eyes.

"_What_?"

Yugi looks up, surprised at Ryou's surprise. He hesitates but then finally says, "Well, you and him _do_ both have weird white hair." Ryou inwardly smirks at this, because this was _Yugi_ telling someone _they _have 'weird hair'. "You have a lot of similar personality traits. That's never happened before. I just thought you'd wanna know more about the one guy who's most like you here."

Ryou suddenly feels anger bubbling in his stomach, and he knows why.

"Well, continue, then. You never finished your story from the other night about what happened to Bakura. _And_ you never told me how _you_ ended up here, either," Ryou replies, suddenly nasty.

There's a silence, and Ryou continues staring wordlessly, unblinkingly, and harshly at the tri-colour-haired before him before Yugi reaches forward, moves two checkers, and announces,

"I win."

* * *

His Stephen King novel is finished.

The book is closed, and Ryou sighs as he leans his head back against the plastic chair he's sitting in. He closes his eyes for a bit, feeling that wave of tiredness that always seems to wash over him after he's finished a good book.

Bakura was right.

It _was_ a morbid story.

And Ryou enjoyed it, too.

As soon as the thought goes through his brain, Ryou swallows. He lifts his head back off of the chair, and twists his lips in distaste when he remembers Yugi's comment about him being "a heck of a lot like Bakura".

He didn't _want_ to be like Bakura.

The Good Lord up in Heaven knew that was _exactly_ the _one friggin' thing_ he _didn't_ want to be.

And yet, even he himself didn't doubt the similarities that he and Bakura most definitely shared.

He didn't know what was _wrong_ with Bakura. He didn't know what was wrong with _himself_, even. But there was a similar problem shared between the two of them.

And that both scared and _thrilled_ Ryou out of his mind.

There's a shuffling of sock feet on the tiled floor of the TV room suddenly, and Ryou snaps out of his trance to watch Bakura, all mischievous smiles, bound in. The boy doesn't pay any attention to him, Seto, or Yugi as he hastily slides over to the corner of the room.

The corner of the room with the _puppet_ box.

Bakura bends down, and his smile softens. He reaches in and picks out a gray, ugly sock puppet with googly eyes and a dark yellow threadbare smile. He pulls it over his left hand, and begins to move the puppet's mouth with his fingers while squeaking in a playful voice,

"Hello there, Bakura! Haven't seen you in a while!"

Ryou's jaw drops a little.

And out of the corner of his eye, he sees Seto smirk.

* * *

**Reviews are always nice. So, the other chapters should definitely be up at a rate of one (maybe more) per week. I let you have this one early because I had it on my laptop and it required minimal editing, so you're welcome =)**


	9. Go Figure

**AN: **Where on earth did all these reviews come from? I got a ton in like, a week.

It makes me happy =)

Thankyou all.

Also I APOLOGIZE for the lack of update last week but I can assure you it was 100% not my fault, there was an error on the site which wouldn't let me upload ANYTHING. Anyway, as a way of saying sorry I'm gonna upload two chapters to make up for it. The next one should be on tomorrow =)

* * *

Borderline

_"In these matters, the only certainty is that nothing is certain."_

_-Pliny the Elder_

* * *

**09 ; Go Figure**

* * *

**DISCLAIMER: **I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh!, and this storyline is absolutely, positively fictional. I mean no offense to anyone.

* * *

Ever since Ryou discovered that Bakura was the only one who played with the puppets in the ward and was the one that Seto had forewarned him about earlier when Ryou had first looked at the toys, he couldn't take his eyes off of the boy every time he was in the TV room playing with that same gray sock puppet.

The way Bakura is in his own little world when he's with that thing, mumbling nonsense in that goofy little voice and talking to himself fascinates Ryou.

He secretly wishes he could have as much nerve as Bakura to talk to himself or lose himself in his imagination like that so easily.

But Ryou is a _coward_.

A _confused_ coward.

He swallows.

And, he thinks, he's starting to really hate himself, because, officially, Ryou considers himself really messed up.

At first, he hated Bakura. He was terrified of Bakura. Bakura was the enemy.

But now, Bakura's a _fascination_.

A sort of enigma that Ryou longs to figure out and befriend and just _learn_ from. Because Bakura is what Ryou wants.

He wants Bakura's absolute acceptance of "crazy". He wants to be okay with and _love_ the fact that he's "crazy" like Bakura does and is.

Not to say he wants to be as _crazy_ as Bakura, by any means, but just be that he's okay with his _own_ level of crazy.

Ryou's personal "crazy".

Duke enters the room suddenly, breaks Ryou out of his thoughts, and walks up to Yugi, carrying a tray of pills. He holds out a cup to the small boy.

"Take these, Yugi," Duke instructs.

Yugi reaches forward.

"_No_ Yugi, don't take them!" Bakura cries suddenly in that little puppet voice, reaching over with his puppet-covered hand in protest and smirking as Duke sighs, frustrated, and Yugi squirms uneasily before hesitantly downing the medicine.

Bakura pouts.

He makes the little puppet's head shake in disapproval, and says in the high, playful voice,

"Poor, poor Yugi. Now he's all drugged up."

Duke angrily hurries over to Bakura's side, and holds out the pills for Bakura to take.

"Swallow," he says, using a much harsher tone with Bakura than he did with Yugi.

Bakura narrows his eyes a bit, still smirking, but grabs the pills nonetheless. He tosses them in his mouth without a word of protest, to Ryou's surprise, and in a moment, Duke says,

"Lemme see."

Bakura opens his mouth wide, making a childish, over-exaggerated "_ahhh_" sound, and rolling his tongue out to show that the pills are gone.

Duke nods in approval, and then moves on to Joey.

Ryou stares at Bakura, half expecting the boy to gag up the pills in a split second.

But nothing happens. Bakura just keeps mumbling to himself in that weird voice with that weird puppet, not paying attention to anything or anyone else.

Next thing he knows, Duke is at his side, offering Ryou a cup full of nasty black and blue medication.

Ryou twists his lips as he looks down at them. "What are these?" he asks, kind of disgusted.

Duke sighs. "Just take them."

Ryou scrunches up his nose.

"Ryou," Duke urges, his tone becoming a little more harsh.

Then, it happens.

Behind Duke, Bakura is staring intently at Ryou, a devious spark in his eye. When he finally catches his look, Ryou is a bit confused at first as to why Bakura is staring at him in such a way until Bakura opens his mouth and…

…There they are.

Three shiny, blue, yellow, and black pills are resting on Bakura's tongue, un-swallowed.

Bakura reaches up with his right hand and grabs the pills off of his tongue, sticking them in his sweat pant's pocket. He smirks at Ryou, and Ryou knows what he needs to do.

He quickly grabs the pills from Duke and stuffs them in his mouth, taking a moment to cleverly maneuver them to the side of his cheek before opening his mouth and showing Duke that it's "empty".

As Duke walks away, satisfied, Ryou looks back at Bakura.

The other boy's expression is emotionless, still watching Ryou, waiting.

Then Ryou reaches up, and slips the pills out into his fingers. He flashes them to Bakura for a split-second so that the boy can see, and then immediately, both of their faces break into pleased, mutually amused grins.

* * *

Ryou is in the corner, sitting in a royal blue armchair cross-legged, switching his attention from his upset father to his therapist Dr Potts and then to the small, brightly wrapped bag of gummi bears his father brought him as a little surprise gift. He smirks to himself.

His father then speaks up.

"So, what's this `borderline' business you mentioned over the phone?" he starts.

Ryou's head flies up, his heart beginning to pound.

Dr. Potts gives a quick, uneasy glance at his patient upon noticing Ryou's anxious reaction, but then he swallows and once again turns to the boy's father.

"Um, well, that had to do with Ryou's diagnosis."

Ryou's eyes widen. Never before, in the past week and a half of seeing Dr. Potts every other day, has the older man once mentioned Ryou's "diagnosis".

Ryou's father nods.

"Well, go on."

Dr. Potts sighs heavily. "Well, Mr. Bakura…I don't really know how to say this nicely but…your son is a borderline sociopath," the doctor explains, his voice quieting towards the end.

Ryou's father's jaw drops.

Ryou's eyes widen to the size of cup saucers, and, speaking for the first time in the past half an hour, he cries out,

"_What_? _Sociopath_? _What_? A sociopath is, like, psycho. I'm not psycho!"

Ryou's father lets out a small cry.

Dr. Potts takes a breath in. "Well, Ryou, it's not an official diagnosis." He pauses. "I-I mean, technically it _is_—"

Another small cry from Ryou's father.

"…Bu-but he's not a _complete_ sociopath! He's a _borderline_ sociopath. He's not _officially_ `psychopathic' or anything. He just has some symptoms of the condition and we plan on addressing them before they get any worse and he does become an official threat to society," the therapist hastily finishes.

Ryou inwardly smirks despite himself. "Threat to society"—he kind of likes the sound of that in a sick sort of way. But, regardless of how cool the diagnosis sounds, it still is a bit overwhelming.

"What? So, I'm not, like, officially a _complete_ psycho? I'm only, like, halfway there?" he asks.

Dr. Potts nods. "Yes. We'll be working with you in therapy as best we can to fix these problems before they become any worse."

Mr. Bakura finally quiets and takes a deep, shaky breath in, slowly lifting her head from her hands. "When will my son be out of here?"

Dr. Potts swallows. "Well, unfortunately—"

A thought pops into Ryou's mind suddenly, and, being Ryou, he wastes no time in spurting it out with a smirk on his face. He looks directly at his father, and nonchalantly asks,

"Is the sociopath thing genetic?"

"Ryou!" comes his father's sharp reply.

Dr. Potts stares for a moment at the son and father, but then he shakes his head. "No. No, anti-social personality disorder is not usually genetic."

Ryou nods thoughtfully, and once again looks down at and begins to fiddle with the bag of candy.

His father sighs, irritated immensely. "Look, I just want to know how long my son is going to be in this place," he says harshly, narrowing his gaze a little bit at the doctor. "The people back home who love and care about him are going to be wondering—"

Ryou throws down the bag of candy he was messing with, suddenly _furious_ at his father's words.

"You see, Dr. Potts, the _real_ problem here is that my father's are having a little `summer community party crisis'. He wants to play Mr. Perfect Host, and, well, unfortunately, he can't do that with his _son_ in a mental hospital," Ryou exclaims, cutting in angrily, leaning forward in his seat towards his dather at the end of the sentence for emphasis.

Mr. Bakura's eyes widen in anger at their son's outburst.

"Ryou Bakura—" his father starts, eyes blaring, but the doctor interrupts him.

"Unfortunately, Sir, economics and therapy are nothing alike. The length of Ryou's stay depends on how quickly he opens up to me and other therapists, how well he behaves in the ward and with other patients, and, of course, how long it takes us to determine if he's `cured', so to speak, or not," the therapist explains, surprisingly keeping his cool in such an otherwise awkward situation.

Ryou smirks. His father shakes his head, overwhelmed.

"Thank you for coming in today to speak with me," Dr. Potts finally says, and there's a pause before Ryou adds,

"And thank you for the candy. I will _so_ enjoy it."

* * *

Ryou is racing down the hall, looking for one person and one person only.

Then he spots him. The other white-haired boy is smirking to himself, leaning lazily against the wall near Ryou and Yugi's room, arms behind his head. As soon as he spots Ryou approaching, he straightens up and his smirk grows.

"Well lookie here," he says.

Ryou comes to a dead-stop in front of him.

"I'm a borderline sociopath," he reveals after a moment of silence.

Bakura stares wordlessly.

Ryou gulps.

Then, Bakura's face breaks into a devilish smile.

"Welcome to the club."

* * *

"You knew, didn't you, Duke?"

Ryou is in the cramped bathroom. More specifically, he's in the bath. He's also looking into the mirror, watching Duke's reflection as it stares back at him.

Duke purses his lips together for a moment, and then sighs heavily. He shrugs.

"I never really _knew_, Ryou. I just kind of _suspected_."

Ryou glares at Duke's reflection.

"We all kind of _wondered_. You're kind of rude and speak your mind and are sort of reckless like Bakura is. Yugi and I suspected it first. Then, Seto and Joey. Tristan never really said anything," Duke continues truthfully.

Ryou swallows. Now, he knows why he got all those weird looks from Yugi, Duke, and Seto when he first arrived; they were trying to determine whether or not he was another _psycho_.

"But, Ryou, keep in mind—you're not a _total_ sociopath. Bakura is an official, full-fledged sociopath. You don't have to get his point," Duke adds, trying to shed some light on a dark situation.

Ryou narrows his gaze and suddenly snaps,

"Don't go there. Just _don't_ bring him into this."

Duke blinks, surprised. But he nods nonetheless.

There's a silence. Then, Ryou smirks.

"Do people normally watch you in the bath, Duke?" he asks wryly, changing the subject cleverly.

Duke smiles knowingly. He sighs. "Sorry Ryou, it's the rules. I have to make sure you don't try to drown yourself or whatever." he explains, only half-mockingly.

Ryou ignores what Duke said. "That doesn't answer my question. Do people ever watch you bathe?"

Duke's smile turns to a smirk. "I had two brothers and one bathroom upstairs. What do you think?"

Ryou stares, all seriousness, at Duke.

"I think you should have locked the door."

* * *

**Once again I'm so sorry for the late update! They've fixed the uploading error thing so it should be all good from now on =)**


	10. Morbid Melodies

**AN:** Thanks for the amazing reviews!

Yay, chapter ten! xD Thanks guys. You all inspire me so.

Hints of Puppyshipping in this chapter (Joey/Kaiba) =)

Anyway, enjoy! I hope I didn't have too much of Bakura and Ryou in this chap (too much Ry/'Kura? IMPOSSIBLE!) but without that last part, it'd be too short!

* * *

Borderline

_"After silence, that which comes closest to expressing the inexpressible is music."_

_-Aldous Huxley _

* * *

**10 ; Morbid Melodies**

* * *

**DISCLAIMER: **I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh! (Or the song by Third Eye Blind I put in this chapter because I'm obsessed), and this storyline is absolutely, positively fictional. I mean no offense to anyone.

* * *

"Please?"

"No."

"Please?"

"Ryou, stop."

"Please?"

"All right, _fine_."

At exactly 12:20 in the afternoon on a Friday, the Rockford Psychiatric Hospital's Art Room in Ward 227 is opened for Ryou Bakura.

It took Ryou forty-five minutes of constant pestering directed at Duke before the man finally cracked and unlocked the door for him, but now it's all worth it as he stands in the empty room, staring excitedly at the instruments in the corner, just waiting for him to play them.

Duke sighs.

"Twenty-five minutes, Ryou. That's _it_."

Then, Duke leaves, and Ryou is alone.

He goes over to the piano first thing.

Before, when he first toured the Art Room, he had struck one key on the piano to see how it sounded. That key was Middle C, and it was way out of tune. Regardless of tuning, however, Ryou now slides anxiously onto the bench and begins to poke a few keys.

Then, finally, the opening of "Slow Motion" by Third Eye Blind is dancing through the room.

He adores that song. It's dark and morbid, and his father hated him listening to it, but he always, always was walking around singing it when he was back home because he loves the melody and doesn't care what his father thinks.

He's more than halfway through the first verse when—

"_I guess I didn't mean it—_"

"_—But man you should have seen it, his flesh explode._"

Ryou stops playing immediately.

He flies around to find the source of the new voice, and when he does, he's genuinely surprised.

There, in the doorway, is Bakura. He's got his arms crossed with that ever-present smirk, leaning against the doorframe.

Ryou blinks.

Bakura doesn't say a word, and just uncrosses his arms and walks over to Ryou and the piano. He slides on the bench next to the smaller boy.

Ryou stares.

Normally, he'd push Bakura off the bench. He'd scream and throw a fit over Bakura _daring_ to sit next to him.

But not today.

Not that moment.

All Ryou does instead is simply start to play where he left off in the song.

He takes himself by surprise, actually.

And as he's approaching the chorus, a few other notes mingle with his, and Ryou smiles a tiny smile when he realizes Bakura is playing a duet with him by ear.

Then the chorus arrives.

Bakura and Ryou look at each other for a moment, noticing the huge smiles on each other's faces that neither can help from appearing as their voices mix together quite nicely, and for a split second, they both feel okay.

"_Slow motion, see me let go…_"

* * *

The song is over, and Ryou is resting his head on his arms that are folded across the piano keyboard. Bakura is on the ground, sitting up with his back against the leg of the instrument's bench.

They're silent at first; then, Ryou blinks, swallows a little, and begins to speak. His voice sounds kind of tired and cracks, even though it's only 12:45 in the afternoon.

"You've been playing for a while, I guess."

Bakura doesn't look at Ryou. He only continues to stare at the far wall with a blank look. But he does answer.

"Not really. Only six years. So kind of."

Ryou blinks again. He replies,

"_I've_ been playing piano for eight."

Bakura doesn't say anything.

There's silence in the Art Room for another few minutes, until finally,

"This isn't right."

Bakura, at Ryou's statement, takes the initiative to lean his head back against the piano bench and stare up towards Ryou as best he can. He bites his bottom lip a little.

"What isn't right?" he asks.

Ryou twists his lips oh-so slightly.

"You. Me. This."

Bakura gives him an empty look.

"I'm supposed to be _terrified__ of_ and _loathing_ you. Not…" Ryou groans. "Not _singing_ and playing _piano_ with you," the boy finishes, and Bakura laughs.

"Well, it's kind of a nice change to not have someone loathing and being terrified of me, honestly," Bakura admits quietly.

Ryou smirks a bit.

"I bet," he replies.

There's quiet again, and then suddenly,

"I really like your name, Ryou."

Ryou's breath kind of hitches in his throat.

It's the first time Bakura has ever said his name.

But none of his surprise shows through, and he simply nods almost unnoticeably.

"Thank you," he says.

Bakura nods now.

There's a shuffle of feet suddenly at the door, and Bakura and Ryou's heads shoot up.

There, in the hallway, Joey is standing shyly, peering out from behind a confident looking Seto Kaiba who's eyeing them with curiosity and a bit of disgust.

Bakura returns Seto's look with an even nastier one of his own.

Seto twists his lips.

"The two sociopaths. Together. How _lovely_," the young man says, obviously sarcastic. "What did you guys do to gain entrance to the Art Room? Threaten to poison someone in their sleep?"

Bakura scoffs, obviously not intimidated. Quickly, he stands up.

"Let's get out of here," he mummers.

Ryou blinks, and stays seated on the bench, confused.

Bakura begins to storm out. But suddenly, he turns around and gives Ryou a look.

"I'm talking to _you_," he says.

Ryou blinks, and then hastily stammers to his feet. He begins to hasten after the other boy, but not before swallowing awkwardly as he passes by Seto and Joey, earning two very either angry or confused looks.

The two boys are quickly walking down the hall, wordlessly, until Ryou finally blurts out,

"Okay, what _was_ that?"

Bakura laughs a little.

"What was _what_?"

Ryou rolls his eyes.

"You _know_ Bakura," he starts. "You seemed fine with Seto yesterday. Why, all of a sudden, today, are you two at each other's throats?"

Bakura squeaks to a stop on the tiled floor and flies around, taking Ryou a bit by surprise.

"Because," he starts, his tone dripping with a mix of sarcasm and frustration. "This morning the news got around that you're a borderline sociopath."

Ryou groans. _Great_. Now, everyone in the ward knows he's an "almost psycho", and, evidently, some people aren't too happy about that.

Bakura looks at Ryou with annoyance, seeing the distraught look on his companion's face. "You didn't let me finish," he says. "Seto's not mad `cause of the reason you're thinking of. Seto's mad `cause he's _jealous_."

Ryou raises an eyebrow, smirking and trying to hold back a laugh.

"_Jealous_?" he repeats, his voice dripping with disbelief. "Of being `anti-social'?"

Bakura purses his lips together, and Ryou feels a rush of frustration with himself. Whatever good thing he had going on with Bakura might have just been blown thanks his previous stupid comment.

"Yes. People want what we have, Ryou. They want to not be afraid to speak their minds. They want to be daring. But they can't fully do all that without our sociopath-ic gifts," Bakura explains, completely un-angry and willing to share his reasoning, unlike what Ryou expected.

Ryou is caught by surprise by the word "gifts". But, he doesn't show it, and instead just simply nods slowly.

Bakura laughs a little and smirks.

"You'll get it eventually, Ryou. Eventually."

Then, the two are walking silently down the hall, again.

* * *

Ryou plays with his fingers.

"Is Seto, like, Joey's bodyguard or something?" he asks kind of jokingly.

Bakura smiles.

"Nope. The two are just best friends. Personally I think they want to fuck eachother too, Either way they've 'got eachother's backs'," Bakura mocks.

Then, he gets a sad look on his face for a moment before adding,

"I wish _my_ best friend had _my_ back."

Ryou is truly surprised at A: Bakura's show of emotion and B: what he actually _said_.

"Who? _Yugi_?" Ryou questions, truly shocked.

Bakura turns. "Yeah. Yugi," he answers, and laughs bitterly at the end.

Ryou opens his mouth to explain to Bakura that Yugi is _always_ sticking up for him, and that Yugi _never_ talks about him behind his back, and that Yugi _cries_ whenever he talks about Bakura and Bakura's past.

But Bakura speaks before he can.

"You know why I was so pissed at you the night you came, Ryou?"

Ryou remembers that first night's outburst with the yelling and the crying and the screaming and—

"No, I don't know why you were pissed."

Bakura narrows his eyes a little.

"They told me, a week before I first ran away, that I was going to get to move from seclusion into Yugi's room since I'd been `well-behaved'." He turns to Ryou. "I was gonna get _your_ bed."

Ryou bites his lower lip as he feels a small rush of guilt.

"But, things changed. I left," Bakura says after a breath in, obviously not wanting to explain a long story. "And, I got back, my spot was gone, and apparently Yugi didn't give a crap."

He laughs bitterly.

"They told him I was dead."

Ryou's eyes widen.

Bakura turns.

"Dead, Ryou. _Dead_."

The two boys finally stop at the TV room, which is surprisingly empty for the mid-afternoon. Bakura plops down in a plastic chair, and Ryou simply continues standing and watches him.

"As you can see, I'm not dead at all," Bakura jokes a little, but Ryou can tell that he's not really meaning for it to be a joke so he doesn't laugh along. "And now that I'm back, Yugi hasn't so much as spoken more than three, four words at me. Barely _looked_ at me, even."

He sighs heavily.

"So, anyway, I'm just disappointed in him, is all."

Ryou nods in understanding. He swallows.

"I'm disappointed, too."

Bakura looks up, smiling a little.

"In who?"

One corner of Ryou's mouth turns up, and he whispers,

"In everyone except _us_."

* * *

Yeahh. Review please =)


	11. Best Friends Means

**AN:** Hey everyone! Thanks for understanding about the late update.

I've had a couple people ask about what to expect from future chapters so I'll just say there's gonna be yaoi and violence in the later chapters =)

Yeah, you're probably going to notice that I'm incorporating a lot of music and things into this, I just thought it would be something I could write about more accurately being a musician and all =)

Anyway, here's a new chapter. I'm super ill with what may or may not be the plague at the moment (actually it's more like the 'flu, but still) so I decided to upload this early. Hope you all enjoy—this part was fun to write.

* * *

Borderline

_"Misfortune reveals true friends."_

_-Aristotle _

* * *

**11 ; "Best Friends" Means…**

* * *

**DISCLAIMER: **I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh!, and this storyline is absolutely, positively fictional. I mean no offense to anyone.

* * *

Bakura is twirling around.

He's making Ryou dizzy, actually.

Ever since the TV room got a new office chair with wheels, it's unofficially been claimed "Bakura's Chair", and no one goes in Bakura's Chair, except the boy. He spins and spins in that black chair and doesn't say a word and doesn't get nauseous.

It's really weird.

But entertaining, nonetheless, and as Ryou sits in that same old plastic chair of his, he watches his new friend fly about with a smile on his face.

But meanwhile, in the corner, a certain Yugi Mutou sits in another blue plastic chair, bitterly staring at Bakura and Ryou from across the room.

And then, on the couch, a Seto Kaiba is groaning in annoyance at the two.

Mr. Joey Wheeler is just sitting there quietly, playing with a corner of Kaiba's jacket, but it's obvious that he's a bit aggravated.

And Tristan…well, Tristan hasn't left his room for two days as far as any of the boys know.

Everyone in Ward 227 has figured out that in the past two weeks, Ryou and Bakura have become rather close.

And it drives everyone friggin' _insane_.

Now, that's saying something, considering the boys' already unstable mental conditions. But in their opinions, one sociopath was enough. Now, they pretty much have two.

* * *

The two boys eat together (Well, _Ryou_ eats. Bakura just sits there and either stares blankly out the window or blabbers on about some weird, random topic), stay up way past their curfew secretly together, make fun of the DVDs that the TV room has together, chatter loudly and rudely about everything and everyone together, or, sometimes, they even disappear into the Art Room for a half an hour, playing different instruments together.

Those times are Ryou's favorites.

He and Bakura play duets on the piano, and Bakura sometimes picks up the accordion.

But there's _one_ instrument Ryou has yet to see Bakura play.

Guitar.

And Ryou _really_ wants to see him play guitar, because according to Bakura himself, guitar was his "thing". He'd been playing guitar for seven or eight years, and he adored it. So, naturally, Ryou wanted even a _little_ performance.

However, no such luck so far, and Ryou was afraid to push it. He was still on shaky ground with the older boy, and didn't want to blow the good relationship he had going.

Suddenly, the office chair stops spinning, and Ryou blinks in surprise as Bakura sits there in front of him, clutching the sides of the chair, smirking.

"Let's play with the puppets," he says, his eyes almost exploding with mischievous excitement.

Then, the older boy flies up, dashes over to the puppet box, and tosses Ryou one of the toys. Ryou catches it clumsily, and looks at it.

It's a puppy dog hand puppet.

He smiles to himself.

But before he can move, a chair is heard quickly and angrily scraping the tiled floor, and all of a sudden, Yugi is marching out of the TV room, furious.

And at Yugi's upset exit, Seto smirks a little and laughs bitterly, giving a side glare to Ryou while Joey simply averts his gaze from anyone else' s and goes back to messing with his friend's jacket.

Ryou swallows uneasily, because, deep in his heart, he has a feeling he knows what Yugi is so ticked off about.

But Bakura pops out of the puppet box, raises an eyebrow, tilts his head, and truly, innocently, asks,

"What's with him?"

* * *

Ryou quietly closes the door to his and Yugi's room.

After he'd finished playing a fifteen-minute game of puppets with Bakura (complete with creepy high voices and a morbid plot concerning mass murder and a load of black humor), Bakura had to go off to therapy.

So, Ryou decided, since he was alone, he'd go and talk to Yugi.

It's not to say that he _cares_ what Yugi thinks or feels, really, because honestly, he doesn't. It's just that he's curious to find out the real reason for Yugi's attitude.

When Ryou finds him, the small boy is sitting on his own bed to the left, headphones on, bopping his head to a beat and re-arranging his CDs again.

Ryou walks over, and, to get his roommate's attention, unplugs Yugi's headphones from his portable CD player. Immediately, Yugi's head flies up. The boy's already irritated expression darkens even more as he spots Ryou in front of him.

He pulls off his headphones and snaps,

"_What_?"

Ryou backs up and lazily leans against the desk in the center of the room, crossing his arms with an unemotional look.

"So what's your problem?" Ryou asks.

Yugi narrows his gaze.

"You _know_," he says in response.

Ryou laughs and shakes his head.

"No, Yugi, I don't."

Yugi suddenly flies up at the reply, taking Ryou only a bit by surprise when he storms over to the other boy.

"Bakura let _you_ play with the effing puppets!" he says, his tone bitter and full of hatred and disbelief, "The _puppets_. Before today, he'd never let a soul so much as _look_ at them! Not even me! His best _effi__ng_ friend!" Yugi cries.

Ryou stares, un-fazed by Yugi's sudden hysterics. He shrugs. "Sorry to tell you, Yugi, but Bakura doesn't really consider you his `best effing friend' anymore," he reveals.

Yugi's eyes start to blare as soon as the words leave Ryou's lips.

"_What_ is so friggin' special about you?_ Huh?_" Yugi asks suddenly, shaking, with his voice strained in a desperate attempt to control himself.

A moment later, he loses that control.

"WHAT. MAKES. HIM. WANT. _YOU_?"

Ryou's eyes widen, because now Yugi is screaming.

The normally angelic, quiet, multicoloured-haired boy is bright red with anger and is utterly beside himself with rage, shouting at his roommate.

"_WHY_? WHY?" Yugi repeats in fury.

"Because you're not Yugi Mutou anymore."

Ryou and Yugi's heads both snap over at the voice, and Ryou feels a rush of joy and relief to see Bakura standing in the doorway, his fists clenched death white and his eyes narrowed at Yugi.

Yugi gets over his initial shock of seeing Bakura in the room, and shakes his head. Disgusted and confused, he spits out,

"_What_?"

Bakura moves forward into the room, and pulls Ryou back into the hallway with him. This angers Yugi even more, and his cheeks flush a darker red.

"Because the Yugi Mutou that was my `best effing friend' would _stay_ my best effing friend, even if I'm a fucking _sociopath_," Bakura sneers back, his tone filled with feelings of anger and resentment and betrayal that had piled up year after year.

And as Ryou lets himself be pretty much dragged by Bakura down the hallway away from the room, and as Ryou hears Yugi screech in fury and hears what he thinks are several CDs breaking, he knows that's the end of that.

* * *

Tristan comes out of his room one day.

It was really random.

6:30 in the evening, right before the boys all went down to dinner (Tristan normally ate in his room), Tristan Taylor stepped out of his private bedroom.

Ryou was sitting in the chair.

Bakura was lying on the sofa, playing and talking to himself with the puppet.

Yugi was in the far corner again, playing "Go Fish" with Joey on a table.

Seto was idly tracing circles on the same table that Joey and Yugi were playing the card game on.

But as soon as Tristan stepped out into the hallway, not giving any attention whatsoever to any of his ward-mates and relaxingly slipping his hands into his pockets, looking down the hallway as if expecting someone, everyone's heads shot up.

Then, a new figure, clad in a black jacket, a graphic t-shirt, and torn blue jeans appears down the hallway. He's got long-ish brown hair, a couple piercings, and a beard.

He reaches Tristan, and the two share a quick hug.

Suddenly, Ryou hears Seto mutter not-so-happily,

"Andy."

Joey's eyes widen.

The man now revealed to be Andy looks behind Tristan, and Tristan looks behind, too. At first, Tristan rolls his eyes and Andy gives a smile to everyone in the TV room, but then, as soon as they both catch sight of the glares and/or shocked looks Seto and Joey are giving them, they uneasily walk away from the room and farther down the hall, talking.

Ryou tilts his head curiously.

Obviously, Andy is known by a few people in the ward.

But, as soon as Tristan and Andy walk away, Seto scoffs and Joey sighs and looks down shyly, and they don't pay any more attention to them.

But Ryou and Bakura both do.

Ryou's eyes widen and Bakura's eyes narrow suspiciously as Andy and Tristan talk a little more, giving secret little looks to the side and looking like they're conversing in hushed tones. Finally, Andy smiles, as does Tristan, and the two shake hands. But, if you looked close enough, you'd see that Andy slipped something into Tristan's hand before Tristan tucked the article away in his pocket and Andy began walking away towards the exit.

Ryou twists his lips in confusion.

Tristan begins walking back to his room, averting his gaze from the people in the TV room. Once he's finally disappeared again, Ryou gives a look around the room.

As far as he can see, no one else has seen what he just saw except maybe Bakura. But even Bakura's not making any move to do anything, so…

…He stands up.

He stands up and walks over to Tristan's room.

Now, if Ryou had been paying attention to anyone as he walked to Tristan's doorway, he would have earned a few shocked and disgusted looks from every boy except Bakura.

But ever since the little fallout the other day, Seto and Joey have followed Yugi's lead and completely shut off communication with Bakura and Ryou. The guards all noticed it. The psychiatrists noticed it.

But no one did anything.

So, officially, no one spoke to Bakura and Ryou.

Ryou arrives at Tristan's doorway and knocks once on the door.

"_Bakura, __LEAVE_," Tristan screams, and Ryou resists the urge to chuckle.

"It's—it's not Bakura. It's Ryou," he replies, taking a breath in, suddenly feeling flutters of nervousness, and swallows.

There's a silence, and Ryou's about to walk away when,

"Come in."

Ryou blinks, but opens up and steps through the door.

Meanwhile, Bakura watches his new best friend walk into Tristan Taylor's bedroom with a very displeased look, and figures he'll just have to go and join them.

* * *

So...probably a lot more frequent updates since I'm ill, which is good...for you guys, anyway xD


	12. Rule Number One

**AN:** Hi guys! So, I went to the doctor and it turns out I have tonsillitis, which is never good -.- So hopefully that clears up soon =)

And I know my update schedule's been really eclectic lately. Bear with me guys.

Also for those who guessed that Andy was Tristan's secret drug dealer, you're totally right. And I did put 'Slow Motion' by Third Eye Blind in there because the lyrics were kinda relative =)

PS: Thanks for all the postitive feedback I've been getting on this story, and other stories. It really, really means a lot, and I know I'm really bad for replying to reviews but one day I'm just gonna sit down and reply to them all, I promise =)

* * *

Borderline

_"Sometimes we take chances; sometimes we take pills, I could write it better than you ever felt it."_

_-"Hum Hallelujah", Fall Out Boy_

* * *

**12 ; Rule Number One**

* * *

**DISCLAIMER: **I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh!, and this storyline is absolutely, positively fictional. I mean no offense to anyone.

* * *

Tristan's room is nice.

Simple, but nice.

Its theme is blue. The walls are blue, the bed is blue, and the dresser and nightstand are covered with blue trinkets, including a candle.

Ryou swallows.

"So, I take it your favorite color is blue?" he asks, realizing that even though his conversation starter is pathetic, it's still a conversation starter. He looks up at Tristan, awaiting an answer.

Tristan is lying on his bed, arms folded behind his head, looking rather careless. His face shows no emotion as he replies,

"No, it's red."

Ryou blinks. "Okay, red's good too. One of my personal fav—"

"What do you want?" Tristan interrupts.

Ryou wastes no time, being Ryou, in replying,

"What did you and Andy just do?"

Tristan's eyes narrow.

"What are you _talking_ about?"

Ryou begins fiddling with a guitar that's resting on the dresser as he responds,

"You know what I'm talking about. What did Andy just give you? Who_ is_ Andy, even?"

Tristan glares. He's not answering, and now Ryou's mad.

"Andy is Tristan's best friend. He comes once every now and again and brings Tristan a little something. However, I am at a loss as to _what_ that `little something' is and would _very_ much appreciate you explaining, Taylor."

Bakura enters Tristan's room, and it's shocking how quiet he was at first, just standing in the doorway watching. He explains the situation to Ryou so matter-of-factly, and immediately as the last word falls out of Bakura's lips, Tristan's eyes set on fire.

"GET. _OUT_!" the man exclaims, flies up, and chucks a pillow at Bakura's head.

Bakura easily dodges. He then saunters over to the other side of Tristan's room, ignoring the man's blazing anger.

"Now, now, Tristan, temper," Bakura scolds playfully, and picks up a picture frame from the nightstand that holds a photo of Tristan's family. Staring at it and walking around, he starts,

"So, Mr. Big Shot-Cardiologist-Dad buys you a private, and you don't let _anyone_ in. You only come out for medication, and you always have a candle or some sort of air freshener in here…"

The picture is slammed down on the nightstand again, and Bakura's head flies up, his look all seriousness and no intimidation.

"All right, where's the pot?"

Ryou's jaw drops.

"Pot?" he repeats, disbelieving. "Bakura, what—?"

Tristan's face flushes a crimson red.

"DUKE! DUKE!" he screeches in fury.

Bakura gets a disgusted look on his face.

"Okay, okay, _okay_, Tristan, why _don't_ you call in Duke, huh?" Bakura interrupts Tristan's hysterics, a clever smirk on his face. "Why _don't_ you call in Duke so that Ryou here and I can get our butts kicked outta your room and stuck in seclusion for a couple weeks while you sit in here and smoke weed while you're _supposed_ to be in rehab? Or, maybe, before _any_ of that happens, Ryou and I can call you out and your entire room will get searched and your stash will be found and you'll be screwed. Is _that_ what you want?" Bakura finishes, narrowing his eyes.

Tristan's shaking with anger, but Ryou sees that he's backed down.

Then, as Tristan swallows and averts his gaze, Ryou looks at Bakura, admiration in his eyes.

Bakura can really be amazing when he wants to be.

"There's no pot, Bakura…" Tristan starts, his voice meeker than Ryou's ever heard it.

Bakura purses his lips.

"Lying isn't good, Tristan," he says.

Finally, Tristan sighs heavily, reaches under his mattress, pulls out a book marked "journal", and opens it. There, in the front, is a small pocket filled with bags of marijuana.

Tristan plops it on the bed.

"_There_, Bakura. Happy now?" he sneers, glaring.

Ryou's mouth opens in shock.

And Bakura smiles and laughs.

* * *

Later that day, the boys hear news they never would have expected in a million years.

"Tristan is leaving in a couple weeks."

All five boys sit on the couch, staring wide-eyed at Duke (Ryou hadn't seen much of him lately. He wouldn't blame him though—he'd want to be as far away from Ward 227 as possible if he was working at the hospital), in front of them.

"…_What_?" Seto blubbers out finally, in utter shock.

Duke swallows.

"Tristan is leaving. He's clean."

Ryou and Bakura share a smirk.

* * *

"Ryou!"

Ryou stops only because the voice is unfamiliar. Then, when he turns around and sees Duke racing up after him through the hallway, he gets kind of a nauseous feeling in his stomach.

"Ryou, I need to talk to you," Duke says once he finally catches up.

Ryou purses his lips together, but nods.

Duke sighs.

"Ryou, are you okay?"

Ryou is truly surprised at the words, but he blinks and doesn't show it. "What?" he says instead.

"It's just that, lately, you seem…different," Duke replies.

Ryou stifles a laugh.

"`Different?" he repeats. "Like, how?"

Duke shakes his head. "Never mind. Maybe it's just me. But I want you to know that if you ever want to talk, I'm here. I do care about all of you boys, Ryou, believe me."

Ryou nods.

"Right. Okay, well, I gotta get going," he says, and starts to walk off.

"Ryou, wait!"

Ryou sighs, aggravated, but turns around nonetheless.

"Yes, Duke?"

Duke smiles.

"You're allowed to go into the Art Room whenever you want, now. You don't need anyone's permission."

Ryou blinks, and doesn't have time to even say `thank you' before Duke walks away.

* * *

"So, he's just letting you go in whenever now?"

Ryou sits up from his pillow and supports his head with his hand. He looks at Bakura, who's across from him on Yugi's bed, scribbling in a beat up brown notebook.

"Yup. It was weird. Do you think he has a crush on me or something?" Ryou asks, scrunching up his nose in distaste at the thought of _Duke_ liking him in that way.

Bakura lets out a burst of laughter. Ryou frowns, insulted.

"What?" he says.

Bakura shakes his head, still kind of chuckling. "Nothing, it's nothing." He takes a deep breath. "But, no, Duke doesn't like you. They just give special privileges like that to people who are `concerning' them," the older boy explains, using air quotes and a mocking tone with the word "concerning".

Ryou raises an eyebrow.

"`Concerning them'?" he repeats.

Bakura nods and doesn't look up from the notebook that he's begun scribbling in again. "Yup. You've done something that's made them a bit uneasy about you, so they wanna give you extra attention or an extra freedom like free use of the Art Room so you don't go psycho."

Ryou looks down, and begins drawing circles on the sheets.

Bakura smirks, stops writing, and looks up.

"You don't want to go psycho, do you?" he asks wryly.

Ryou licks his lips.

"Not…really," he admits in a hesitant tone.

Bakura stares, still smirking.

"It's more fun than you think," he says, and then starts writing again.

For a moment or two, Ryou just continues drawing circles while thinking deeply, and Bakura continues scratching on the paper, writing down God-knows-what.

Then, Ryou finally jumps off of the bed and walks over to Bakura. He leans over the boy's notebook, and peers down curiously.

"Written anything about me in there?" he asks playfully.

The notebook is immediately slammed shut, and when Ryou looks up, playfully pouting, he's greeted with the extremely insulted, angry face of Bakura. The older boy flies up, and Ryou backs away, his eyes wide.

"Don't you _ever_ do that again," Bakura sneers, and Ryou takes a shaky breath in.

He was not expecting that.

"I-I'm sorry."

Suddenly, the bedroom door opens, and there stands Yugi. Upon seeing his ex-best friend and his roommate together, he gets a disgusted look on his face.

Bakura simply narrows his eye only a little bit, and Ryou is still shocked at Bakura's outburst and therefore doesn't react to seeing Yugi.

Bakura swallows and turns back to Ryou.

"Good night."

Then, the white-haired boy is gone from the room.

Ryou stands there, un-moved, still with his eyes wide.

Yugi walks into the room and closes the door quietly. Then, he starts to pull out his pajamas, and as he does, Ryou catches his look. It's a devilish smirk. Then Yugi says in a mocking, spiteful tone,

"Rule number one as Bakura's `best effing friend'—never, ever try to read The Journal."

* * *

**=) R&R**


	13. Sweet Dreams And Secret Secrets

**AN:** Hey! This chapter has some...wait for it...Ryou/Bakura bonding =D

Also a tad more Puppyshipping hints in this chapter.

Read on...

* * *

Borderline

* * *

_"Dreaming permits each and every one of us to be safely and quietly insane every night of our lives."_

_-William Dement_

* * *

**13 ; Sweet Dreams & Secret Secrets **

* * *

**DISCLAIMER: **I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh!, and this storyline is absolutely, positively fictional. I mean no offense to anyone.

* * *

"Duke."

Ryou walks up, fearless, to the guard who is sitting at the nurses' station. The man turns to him, and when he does, his eyes widen with shock.

"Yes, Ryou?" he asks, sort of wary but trying not to show it.

Ryou crosses his arms.

"Don't be `concerned' about me."

Duke raises an eyebrow.

"_What_?" he replies.

Ryou narrows his gaze.

"I know you're all thinking I'm going downhill. That's why you gave me free use of the Art Room—to stop me from going psycho. But just _don't_," he says.

Duke, now _very_ confused and put-off, responds,

"Ryou, what are you _talking_ about?"

"Just leave me alone. Stay out of my business, let the _psychiatrists_ deal with talking to me, and _don't_ care, okay? That way we'll _all_ be happy," Ryou says, and then marches off, leaving behind a very utterly confused guard.

* * *

"Is Tristan really leaving?" Ryou asks, lying on his back on his bed, staring up at the ceiling, arms and legs sprawled out.

Bakura plops down on _his_ back on the mattress next to Ryou, supporting himself up with his arms. He stares at the wall across the room.

"Yeah," the older boy whispers back, his tone strangely depressing and soft. "Yeah."

Ryou doesn't say or do anything, even though his friend's tone is, for once, showing actual _emotion_. He just stares blankly up. Then, finally, after minutes of still, thoughtful silence, he shakes his head, disgusted.

"But the guy's _psycho_. He gets his friend to deliver him _pot_ in _rehab_!"

Bakura laughs bitterly, and then lies down on his back fully.

"Well, he did okay in therapy, and that was enough for them, I guess," he explains.

Ryou then turns to Bakura on his side, staring curiously at the boy.

"What? _Therapy_?" he repeats.

Bakura doesn't look at Ryou and just nods.

"Yup. That's all you really have to do to get outta this snake pit," he starts, a bitter disgust dripping off of his words, and then he changes his tone to that sarcastic German accent he uses to mock Freud. "`Lie down, confess your sins, and you're saved!'" he mocks. "That's why Freud's fucking picture is pasted up every-friggin'-where around here in all the fucking psychiatrists' rooms. It's the age-old tactics. Even if the don't work, they still use `em. Cough up your secrets, and you're `healed'."

Bakura's tone is quietly hostile in a pathetic sort of way.

Ryou blinks. He's wordless at first, but then,

"But Bakura…what if you don't have a secret?"

Bakura, for the first time in their conversation, turns to Ryou. His face is emotionless, but there's a hint of true sadness in his dark brown eyes as he whispers,

"Then you're stuck here forever, like me."

* * *

Ryou wakes up at exactly 1:00 AM because he hears screeching.

He flies up, still in that half-asleep, half-conscious hazy state of mind, and looks anxiously around his room, his heart thumping madly in his chest.

In a mental hospital, there are _many_ things that can go through a person's head when one hears screaming. Most of those things are terrifying and sick, so of course Ryou's a _bit_ worried.

Then again, though, he's not even completely sure if he's actually _awake_ or just _dreaming_.

But soon, his fears melt away to a sort of amusement and he realizes that the wailing is _not_ in his head. Yugi groans tiredly, and turns in his sheets. Ryou watches as the dark blonde covers his ears, buries his face in the pillow, and mutters,

"_Seto_…"

Ryou blinks, his interest perked and his previously sleepy state of mind completely gone. Not once at his experience at Rockford has Ryou gotten the chance to witness one of Seto's "nightmares". He had heard they were intense and disturbing, which just made him want to see them even more, because Ryou is weird like that.

Now, he _is_ fairly surprised Seto is even _having_ an attack, because he knew that they had him on sleeping medicine, but apparently they've taken him off because the howling outside in the hallway is getting louder and more horrific.

So Ryou gets up.

He shuffles to the door, ignoring the freezing tile under his toes, and peers outside into the hallway.

The room across from his and Yugi's (Seto's own private room—but unlike Tristan, his parents didn't _pay_ for him to get a single. The psychiatrists just demanded it, because with all of Seto's night escapades he couldn't keep a roommate if he tried.) is wide open with a light on. There's yelling coming from inside, and Ryou now notices that there is more than just Seto's voice screaming. The guard's voices are rising into the atmosphere as well, and from what Ryou can make out of their words, they're arguing with Seto to calm down.

Then—

CRASH.

Glass breaks from inside the bedroom.

Seto howls the longest, most disturbing scream yet after the noise, and Ryou actually finds himself covering his ears.

Then, the patient's shadowed form falls out of the bedroom, toppling onto the ground, sobbing with his head in his hands. Ryou can see that Seto is shaking violently, rocking back and forth slightly, and whispering barely audible, but nonetheless seemingly disturbing things into his palms.

The guards follow Seto out of the room, and their faces are etched with exhaustion and pity. Duke bends down to touch Seto's shoulder, but Seto just howls and pulls away, still crying and not letting anyone see his eyes. Duke shakes his head and says,

"Seto, we _can't_ put you back on the sleeping medicine. As it is, you've been on it for longer than the doctors even want."

Seto's cries get louder and more desperate with the man's words.

Duke sighs.

Then, Ryou tilts his head curiously as he watches Duke turn to Jared, another guard, who's standing behind the hysterical patient and the head guard silently with his eyes wide, and instruct,

"Get someone to clean up the broken glass in his room. But before you do that…get Joey."

Ryou watches as Jared nods obediently and runs off.

* * *

Ryou scoffs inwardly. He never, _ever_ plans on being that obedient _ever_ again. Though, truth be told, it's not like he was even that obedient in the _first_ place.

As Ryou is waiting for Jared and possibly Joey to arrive, he takes the liberty of looking around the hall and behind him to check up on his roommate. Now, he notices that he's not the only one who's awake watching the escapade unfold.

Joe is leaning in his doorway, a disgusted, completely drained look on his face. Yugi is watching from his bed behind Ryou, through the open door. Joey is nowhere to be seen.

Ryou peers down the hall towards seclusion, but as far as he can see, Bakura isn't outside of the room, and he frowns.

Bakura would have _loved_ to see this.

All of a sudden, footsteps break Ryou out of his trance. He looks up to see Jared trailing behind a running Joey Wheeler down the hall. Joey sees Seto on the ground and says something along the lines of,

"Okay, I'm here now, Seto."

Then, the blonde bends down on the ground and scoops up his friend in a giant hug without a word of instruction.

As soon as Joey's arms wrap around him, Seto immediately lets down whatever walls he previously had up, and falls into his friend's arms, sobbing hard.

Jared is awkwardly shuffling back and forth on his feet as this all goes on—obviously, he's not on "Kaiba duty" a lot. Duke is smiling slightly, still standing behind Seto and Joey on the ground. Yugi chuckles a little, saying something like,

"It never fails."

And Tristan? Well, Tristan groans, and storms back into his room muttering,

"And _that_ is why I'm _beyond_ overjoyed to go home."

Ryou chuckles a little at that, and then he turns his attention back to the two boys on the ground.

The two have retreated into their own little world as Seto mumbles into Joey and Joey answers soothingly while rocking his best friend back and forth with a saddened look on his face.

Ryou catches a small part of their conversation.

"Th—they won't stop, Joey…" Seto cries quietly, his voice choked up, desperate (which Ryou sort of finds fascinating—never before has he heard Seto Kiaba _desperate_), and breaking with sniffles and shivers. "I—I've tried so hard, but they just won't go away…"

Joey frowns, and Ryou notices that his eyes are also watery with tears. Then, he whispers back,

"I'll help them stop, Seto. I promise." A pause, and Joey's frown turns into a small, small smile. "Now, just rest. I'll be right here…I'll be right here."

And as Seto quiets down oh-so-slowly, with nothing but a few cries or whimpers here or there (And when he does cry or whimper, Ryou notes, Joey just holds him tighter), and as Jared and Duke finish up cleaning Seto's bedroom and walk out, whispering a quiet "thank you" to Joey, and as Joey ignores them all and just continues holding Seto, Ryou realizes that Joey is The One.

Joey is the only one that can save Seto.

Save him from his nightmares. His mind. His traumas.

_Himself_.

Seto would be, no doubt in Ryou's mind, long dead without Joey.

Ryou also watches how Seto desperately clings to the blonde, face still buried in Joey's baggy pajama top, and how Joey simply pulls his friend closer, smiling slightly. That's when Ryou also realizes that it goes vice-versa.

Seto is the only one that can make Joey _okay_.

He's the only one that gives Joey that feeling of actual_worth_, of, "I'm-more-than-less-than-nothing-to-everyone", of being needed horribly, of being appreciated deeply, of being _loved_.

Ryou suddenly frowns.

He wishes he had a friendship that was amazing like theirs.

He's jealous, and he doesn't like it one _bit_.

He starts to retreat back into his bedroom, feeling tiredness suddenly overtake him.

But, before he goes in, he pauses.

Because, in the dark hallway now, he hears a soft melody.

It's rising above the stillness, breaking through beautifully.

Joey is singing.

Singing to Kaiba.

And despite his previous feelings of jealousy…

…Ryou goes to bed with a smile that night.

* * *

Bakura grabs a strawberry off of Ryou's Belgian waffle.

Ryou puts down his fork.

"Bakura," he starts.

Bakura looks up, chewing the fruit. He swallows. "Yeah?"

Ryou blinks. "Have you ever seen one of Kaiba's nightmares?" he asks.

Bakura leans back in his chair, looking directly and thoughtfully at Ryou, as if he's surprised at the question. He takes a breath in and pauses. "Yeah. The first night I got here," he answers finally.

Ryou raises his eyebrows in surprise. "Wow."

Bakura nods, and then leans forward and folds his arms on the table in front of him. "It was so messed up, `cause at that time, they hadn't totally figured out what to do with Seto when he started going crazy like that. And it was happening a lot, `cause they hadn't put him on the drugs yet, either," Bakura explains.

Ryou nods.

Bakura takes a deep breath in and lets it out loudly.

"So, basically, the night I first came, I was sleeping alone in room four or something. I heard all this screaming and crying, so I went to the door, and peeked outside. Seto was freakin' _punching_ Jared, who was trying to get a hold of him, `cause when Seto freaks out, he's really dangerous and smashes or throws things, a lot of the time at _people_," Bakura tells.

Ryou hastily nods. "Yeah, last night, he had an attack, and smashed some glass in his room," he says.

Bakura laughs. "You gotta be kidding me? I missed a Kaiba Freak Out?" He groans. "That would have been _awesome_ to see."

Ryou laughs, too. "I was thinking of breaking you out of seclusion so you _could_ see it," he says.

Bakura scoffs. "You couldn't break into or out of that prison no matter what," he replies. "Trust me, I've tried."

Ryou shrugs.

"Anyway, basically, right as Seto's about to, like, be shot with a fucking tranquilizer, Joey runs up," Bakura continues.

Ryou swallows.

"Joey somehow gets past Jared to get to Seto, and he whispers something to him. And then, just like that, Seto shuts up."

Bakura shakes his head.

"Joey's the only one who can `tame the beast', so to speak. And we have no idea what he does, but it works every _fucking_ time."

Ryou nods.

"Joey and Seto are close," he whispers.

Bakura looks up, and smirks.

"Kind of like us, huh?" he says, and Ryou's eyes widen in surprise, until he re-gains his composure and smiles with a reply of,

"Yeah. Like us."

* * *

"Why did they say you were dead?" Ryou asks Bakura later that afternoon while they're fiddling with the puppets together in an empty TV room.

Bakura frowns.

"Because I cause so much trouble. It's easiest to just say I'm dead, I guess, even if I'm not. Plus, they probably assumed I was dead anyway `cause I was gone for so long," he answers. He looks up, smirking. "A month is my record."

Ryou licks his lips.

"So you've run away before?"

Bakura laughs. "_Duh_."

Ryou blinks. "How do you manage to get out of here? This place is like a friggin' high-security prison."

Bakura only smirks at his best friend. He continues to stare at the younger boy for a bit with that devilish smile, and Ryou shifts uncomfortably. Then, Bakura stands up.

He puts his puppet away in the box, and he starts to leave the room, not saying a word.

Ryou raises an eyebrow and feels disappointment well up inside of him at his departing friend.

"Where are you—?"

Bakura stops in his tracks.

"Meet me tonight at 11:00, and I'll show you my secret."

* * *

Ooooh =)


	14. Cat's Out Of The Bag

**AN: **Oh my gosh! So, I log onto my email account and find an email entitled 'HELP ME, PLEASE!' which, as I'm a curious person, I opened. Turns out, it was from this person who recently sent a pretty flame-ish comment to me and you guys are totally flooding their account with hate mail and stuff. Now, while I thought it was hilarious and pretty much the coolest thing ever that you guys stood up for me and my fanfiction, hate mail is_ probably_ not the right answer. Everyone's entitled to their opinion so I'm not gonna throw negative comments back at them just 'cause they did it to me.

So...please don't feel it's necessary to send hate mail on my behalf. Stupid reviews like that don't bother me when I have you guys (who are absolutely super special awesome by the way) to send me nice ones =)

But...in spite of myself, it did make me chuckle. I love you guys all the more now =)

P.S. The tonsillitis is going, which is good. Also, I have two weeks holiday. So say hello to the return of the eclectic-and-not-totally-planned-yet-frequent update schedule! It lives once more! =D

I so hope you enjoy this new chapter.

* * *

Borderline

-_"There are no secrets better kept than those that everybody guesses."_

_-George Bernard Shaw_

* * *

**14 ; ****Cat's Out Of The Bag**

* * *

**DISCLAIMER: **I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh!, and this storyline is absolutely, positively fictional. I mean no offense to anyone.

* * *

Ryou doesn't get any sleep.

He goes through with his typical nighttime routine (getting sleeping medicine that he doesn't take, brushing his teeth, changing into his pajamas, ignoring Yugi as best he can), but regardless of the regularity that normally causes him to fall asleep within maybe fifteen minutes, his eyes don't shut once.

They remain locked on the ceiling, only to quickly peer over at the clock on the desk every now and again.

_10:15 PM._

Ryou can't tell if he's excited, or if he's a nervous wreck.

Bakura is Bakura. Ryou knows that. As much as he adores him, Bakura is still, technically, _crazy_. Even though he and Bakura share a diagnosis, Bakura is still daring—to the point of attempting or getting into life-threatening situations. Bakura is a risk.

_A risk you love, Ryou,_ he reminds himself harshly.

But he's human.

Ryou Bakura is human.

And thus, Ryou Bakura is imperfect.

And imperfect people get scared.

Or excited.

Or whatever the heck he's feeling right now.

(Sometimes, Ryou realizes, nowadays, he has trouble deciphering his feelings. But he figures that'll pass eventually.)

Suddenly, Ryou gets the urge to actually use some of the advice that Dr. Potts gave him for therapy.

He's going to "think his feelings through."

* * *

_10:30 PM._

He's nervous. He admits it to himself, with a disgusted look on his face.

He's nervous because…what _is_ Bakura's secret, really?

Didn't, just the other night, the two of them have a conversation about _not_ having secrets?

That's why they're stuck _here_.

Their mental problems aren't because of _secrets_. They have problems because it's just _them_. Bakura and Ryou are "crazy" because Bakura and Ryou are _meant_ to be crazy.

There's nothing anyone can do to change that.

Not Jared, Duke, or Dr. Potts.

No one.

Ryou swallows.

Maybe Bakura's secret isn't what Ryou's thinking it's going to be.

Maybe it's something stupid like a secret little closet in the Art Room or a way to sneak into the nurses' station or—

No.

It's _Bakura_.

Bakura's Secret wouldn't be that little. Not that petty.

Bakura's Secret is going to be huge.

And Ryou's a bit worried.

What if the two get in trouble and separated? What then? Bakura is Ryou's only friend at Rockford; he'd be all alone if he lost Bakura.

What if they kill Bakura? (Ryou doubts that would happen, but he likes the drama of the idea, regardless of how terrible it is.) Bakura's bad; he's been bad. Whatever's going to happen tonight might be his final strike.

What if they send Ryou to a new hospital?

Or worse—what if they send Ryou back _home_?

A whirl of disgust flies through Ryou's body and he visibly shivers through his covers.

No.

He won't go back home.

Not for a _long_ time.

Ryou turns on his side in a rustle of sheets.

_10:45 PM._

He gulps.

Okay, now the flip side—Ryou's excited.

An adventure with Bakura is what he's planning on. Good or bad, it's going to be an adventure. Ryou likes to be daring and spontaneous and a little bit crazy. And he's hoping he's going to get to be all of those things tonight.

And to add to all that, he's going to find out one of Bakura's secrets. He's going to get to dig a little deeper into the mind he loves so much and unlock more of its enticing mysteries.

Now, Ryou smiles.

He has no idea what attracts him to Bakura so much; he doesn't think he'll really _ever_ know. It's like an unseen magnetic force—it just drew his and Bakura's souls together, despite whatever boundaries there were, are, or will be.

* * *

_11:00._

Ryou quietly gets out of bed and creeps out the bedroom door.

He and Bakura didn't plan an exact place to meet.

But Ryou knows where to go anyway.

He's almost to the TV Room when he spots Bakura, leaning through the nurses' station window, slipping a sleeping pill into the snoozing Duke Devlin (the only guard on duty)'s mouth. The boy's tongue is poking out of the side of his mouth, and he's got a rather adorable, determined, concentrated look on his features as he tries to be as quiet as possible.

"_Bakura_!" Ryou whispers sharply, stopping not too far from the scene, his voice clearly filled with amusement as he tries to hold back a laugh.

Bakura snaps around, and his wide eyes and "I-hope-I-didn't-just-get-caught" face make Ryou have to try even harder not to bust out into peals of laughter.

Once the older boy sees it's just his friend who has walked up on him, his face changes from worry to annoyance.

"Oh, it's just you. Don't scare me like that," he replies in the same hushed tone that Ryou used. Then, he hops out of the window, and in a flash, is walking out of the nurses' station. "I was just making sure that we don't have any interferences tonight."

Ryou feels the excitement (or fear) welling up inside of him again.

He smiles.

"All right. What's this `secret'?" he says finally, raising an eyebrow and smirking.

Bakura smirks back. He closes and locks the nurses' station with a ring of keys that he quickly puts back in his pocket after he's done using. (Ryou doesn't ask how he got the keys, either.)

"Follow me," Bakura instructs, and walks quickly past his best friend, down the hall towards the Art Room.

Ryou first follows Bakura with his eyes, but then, after a breath in, begins shuffling after the older boy.

There's silence until the two reach the Art Room.

The duo stands in the doorway as Bakura pulls out that same ring of keys, and quickly fumbles to find the right one. Then, he shoves it into the lock, turns it, and the door opens as Bakura whispers,

"Come on."

Ryou follows wordlessly.

* * *

The Art Room is dark, but the two boys can maneuver through it easily because they know the room like the back of their hand. They know where to turn so that they don't bang into the cello, they know where to reach out and move the accordion, and Bakura, at least, knows where to walk to show Ryou his secret.

In the back of the Art Room is a tall chain link fence. Ryou never really went over to it because as enticing as it was, he knew he couldn't get through due to the numerous padlocks strapped onto the door.

Behind the chain links, several old guitars or violins or other instruments lie, untouched, and covered with dust.

But now, standing this close to it, Ryou realizes it was guarding something, because as he looks closer, he sees that behind the old instruments lies a passageway.

A passageway that leads down and maybe even out.

Ryou's eyes widen.

"Bakura, is that—?"

Bakura whips out the keys and quickly unlocks the chains, pulling them off. He throws open the door, and Ryou cringes as it whacks a guitar, and sound resonates throughout the atmosphere.

Bakura doesn't skip a beat.

"Get in here," he mutters as he squeezes his way through the small opening.

Ryou follows suite.

Ryou watches in the dark as his best friend steps lightly over an overturned, broken cello on the ground.

He tries to keep his steps as graceful and fluid as his best friend's, but occasionally he stumbles because he's distracted by the broken-down instruments surrounding them.

It's probably one of the most tragic sights he's ever seen.

Broken and neglected instruments lie unused back here in the blackness. He thinks it's horrible to waste such beautiful instruments that had such possibility of being great, but he can't really do anything about it and just stares at them all sadly, mentally wishing them well.

It's funny; Ryou can be kind and compassionate and sympathetic to instruments, but not to _human beings_.

Finally, Bakura stops in front of the small doorway in the far back that Ryou saw earlier.

The only sound now is breathing from the two boys.

Then, finally, Bakura says,

"Stay close."

And he disappears into the dark door ahead of them.

Ryou blinks once.

Only once.

Then, he looks back behind him at the saddening sight of broken cellos and guitars and violins that are visible somehow in the darkness and follows after Bakura.

* * *

The two walk in darkness for a while with Ryou only keeping near Bakura thanks to the other boy's clattering footsteps on what he thinks is a stone floor.

It's cold down…wherever they are. And Ryou hears faint water-dripping sounds, too.

Then, finally, he catches faint moonlight on the ground up ahead.

Bakura and Ryou both pick up the pace at the sight of the light.

But they don't get to the light.

They don't get to the silvery, appealing moonbeams because a voice stops them,

"You drugged Duke. How clever."

Ryou's heart pounds in his ears as he turns slowly.

There stands Seto Kaiba, Joey Wheeler, Yugi Mutou, and Tristan Taylor.

Seto is smirking with his arms crossed. Joey is staring wide-eyed. Yugi is glaring. And Tristan is laughing.

Bakura rushes forward to Ryou's side.

_This is it. We're in so much freakin' trouble. I'm gonna either be sent home or to another hospital, and Bakura's gonna—_

"Don't say another word, Kaiba," Bakura sneers, interrupting Ryou's anxious barrage of thoughts.

Joey takes the liberty of replying before his best friend can.

"It's true. You _do_ have a secret passageway," Joey says, and his voice is timid but breathy with excitement and awe.

Tristan bursts into a quick, mocking chuckle. "What do you _mean_, Joey? Did you think he had a _magic wand_ that zapped him out of this place? _God_."

His voice is dripping with a nasty sarcasm.

Joey looks down, and he begins to twist the edge of the sweater he's wearing over his pajama top while his eyes become watery.

_Whoa, Joey is really sensitive, Ryou thinks as he watches the young man's reaction._

"N-no I just wasn't…" Joey trails off, because he's convinced himself that he sounds like a _total_ idiot who has no idea what he's talking about and who will obviously be looked down upon and hated by everyone because of it, even though it's nothing like that _at all_ because everyone knows Tristan's just a cranky (ex?)-pothead who was a jerk in the first place and likes to insult pretty much _everyone_.

Seto turns with a consoling smile and immediately grabs Joey's hand, stopping it from twisting the edge of his blue sweater any more with a comforting grasp, and just like that, Joey seems to be a little better, because he smiles in response a tiny bit.

Then, Seto turns from Joey and glares daggers at Tristan.

"Just shut it, Taylor," Kaiba hisses.

Tristan rolls his eyes.

Yugi huffs.

"What are you two doing down here?" the tri-color-haired boy asks, directing his question towards Bakura and Ryou and trying to stop a fight between Tristan and Seto.

Ryou shuffles awkwardly on his feet.

Bakura, ever-confident, tosses the hair out of his eyes (which promptly falls back again, Ryou notes) and answers coolly,

"It's better than being stuck up there in bed like you guys were."

Tristan glares.

"Well, we're not up there anymore. We heard you and Ryou rushing through the halls and woke up."

"We followed you here," Yugi finishes, his glare deepening. Obviously, he's not too fond of the fact that his best friend and his now-self-proclaimed rival are running around together in hidden passages at 12:00 AM.

Bakura shrugs. He turns and begins walking towards the moonlight again.

"Then join the fun," he says nonchalantly. Then, he turns around, glaring so sharply that even Seto nervously shuffles a little. "But don't say a _word_ about this night _ever_ again."

Everyone's eyes widen.

Ryou regains his composure and rushes forward to follow Bakura.

There's a moment of silence.

Then, Ryou hears the footsteps of the rest of the guys trekking wordlessly after.

* * *

The moonlit area was actually _many_ areas.

Everyone's breaths were taken away as soon as they reached the source of the light.

In front of them were three huge tunnels with windows scattered down their hallways, spilling in silvery night light.

Ryou blinks.

Bakura takes one step forward, doesn't turn around, and says to Ryou quietly,

"This is my secret."

Now he raises his voice so that everyone can hear what he says.

"_This_ is how I get out."

Yugi takes a few steps forward, still taking in the unexpected sight.

"So…do each of these tunnels lead somewhere different?" he asks.

Bakura nods.

"Yeah. They were built way back with the original building; they were constructed so that the patients didn't have to walk through cold weather to get from one part of the building to another, `cause apparently, this men's ward is huge," the boy explains. "These tunnels are actually pretty forgotten about, too, even by the guards, so it's pretty much just me down here."

There's an awe struck silence for a bit, and then Bakura surprisingly says,

"Come on, there's somewhere I want to show you."

* * *

Thanks guys x


	15. Strike!

**AN: **Thanks for all the supportive comments regarding all the rather flame-y reviews I got, guys =)

So, okay, I don't mind stupid comments, but one thing really bugged me for some reason: someone wrote that 100% of published novelists don't write in the present tense. Um, Time Travellers Wife? Fight Club? American Psycho? ALL present tense novels. Look it up.

Yeah, just felt like clearing that up.

ON WITH THE FIC. In present tense, I might add =)

* * *

Borderline 

* * *

"_People are about as happy as they make up their minds to be." _

_-Abraham Lincoln_

* * *

**15 ; Strike!**

* * *

**DISCLAIMER: **I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh!, and this storyline is absolutely, positively fictional. I mean no offense to anyone.

* * *

It's a bowling alley.

There's a _bowling alley_ in the basement of the psychiatric hospital's men's ward.

Go figure.

After walking through the one big tunnel to the left, the passageway split into several different tunnels, and Ryou found himself rather confused. The whole setup down there was rather intricate, so he kept close to his best friend, who knew his way well.

Finally, they came to a battered looking brown door. Bakura opened it, and immediately, a lane with pins and six bowling balls came into view.

Joey laughs in unexpected joy (which Seto smiles - yes, _smiles _- at, Ryou notes), Tristan follows suite and chuckles in disbelief, and Yugi exclaims, "Whoa!"

Ryou is beaming, and Bakura is smirking.

But no one moves.

As happy as everyone is, no one moves forward to start the bowling game.

It's too awkward (for some unknown reason), and no one's sure how to break the ice.

But then Ryou, being Ryou and ever energetic, eager for fun, is the first to rush forward after a frustrated sigh. (Everyone is wasting valuable game time!, he thinks in annoyance) He grabs a bright red bowling ball, turns grinning madly at his companions, and exclaims,

"C'mon you guys!"

Everyone bursts into laughter.

But they come and play, too.

Bakura and Ryou are sitting on the side of the lane, waiting for their turns to bowl.

Ryou is bouncing slightly in his seat, buzzing with excitement, beaming, and swinging his legs back and forth; Bakura is simply watching with a smirk, amused.

Yugi is up. He grabs a navy blue ball, and rushes forward, letting it go at the last minute. It slides across the smooth lane and crashes into the pins, knocking down all of them.

The guys all start clapping, and Ryou glows with happiness as he "whoots" and exclaims,

"Yeah! _Strike_! Go Yugi!"

Yugi bows, smiling and giving Ryou a playful "thank you, thank you!"

Then, Yugi sits down, and Tristan's up.

"All right Tristan!" Ryou cheers as the man walks over to the lane.

And suddenly, he feels like something's not quite right.

He turns.

Bakura is staring at him.

Staring at him blankly.

Ryou feels a shiver run through him.

Bakura is staring at him blankly, but Bakura is looking _right in his eyes_, and Ryou knows right away that Bakura's piercing dark brown gaze is reading his _every_ thought and Bakura is figuring him out by the _second_.

Ryou swallows. And suddenly, he knows _why_ Bakura is suddenly acting so weird towards him, and he knows _what_ he has to do.

"Tonight," he starts softly, putting a true, hopefully reassuring smile on his face for his best friend. He then reaches out and touches Bakura's thin hand comfortingly. "Tonight, we're all friends. We can be friends without worrying about other stuff. No fights, no past troubles, no resentments, nothing else. Just friends. It'll be okay for tonight."

Bakura doesn't smile.

Bakura doesn't smirk.

Bakura doesn't laugh.

But his face loses that frighteningly empty stare and he simply turns his head, replying,

"Nothing will _ever_ be okay."

* * *

After the bowling alley (the winner was a tie between Joey and Yugi because they all found out that Joey's a _really_ good bowler, apparently), Bakura announces that he wants to show everyone one more place.

"Wow, Bakura, you obviously use these tunnels a lot!" Joey exclaims, still radiating utter joy from the fun he had back at the bowling alley.

Seto beams at Joey's happy state; this is what he lives for, now. He _lives_ to see Joey smile, because without Joey there would be no _living_ for him. Without Joey, Seto would be alone and without help. His nightmares would hold him captive, and he would never be saved or have an outlet, and he knows that if that were the case, he'd kill himself in the blink of an eye.

Seto squeezes Joey's hand a little tighter.

"Well, I don't always come down here just to _escape_. Sometimes I just get bored at, like, 1AM and come down here to explore," Bakura answers. "So I discover a lot."

Ryou blinks. He leans into Bakura's ear.

"But I thought you said yesterday you can't break out of seclusion!"

Bakura turns and smirks at Ryou.

Their noses graze, and Ryou shivers a little.

"There were guards around, Ryou. You've gotta be careful about what you say and when you say it," Bakura explains.

Ryou nods.

"But, to answer your question, I have my ways to get out of a lot of sticky situations," Bakura adds, grinning mischievously, and then he turns down a hallway, leaving Ryou both utterly confused and mesmerized.

The library.

Ryou often walked passed it when he was on his way to Dr. Potts's office, but never before had he actually been in the place.

Bakura led them through one more twirling tunnel, and then finally up a dusty, creaking flight of steps before he opened a door and revealed the room of books to everyone.

They were all wordless at first; then Seto blinked and whispered,

"Wow."

Bakura nodded.

"Yeah, `wow'," he agreed, and then he ambled forward before stopping at the mahogany desk a few feet from Ryou. He plopped down in the stiff chair. A pair of huge reading glasses off to the side suddenly caught his eye, and he slipped them on, looking utterly ridiculous wearing the oversized spectacles.

Everyone chuckled.

Bakura then waved his hand and in the same playful, mocking voice he used to make fun of Dr Potts instructed,

"Sit, everyone, sit!"

* * *

So now, all the boys are nicely spread out across the library, some on chaise lounges, and others in a stiff armchair. They're all silent, admiring the array of books around them.

Seto smiles a small smile.

"I haven't read a book in so long."

Joey smiles sadly in response. "You read so much back home. It's no surprise this is hard for you."

Seto nods weakly.

Ryou turns his attention to his best friend, who has now turned on the reading light on the desk and is flipping through a file he has pulled out (pulled out from where, Ryou doesn't know).

Suddenly, without a word, he chucks the folder across the room towards Ryou.

"What the heck, Bakura?" he exclaims, flying forward (taking care to not fall out of the chair), and barely catching it.

Bakura doesn't look up from the second folder he's now skimming through.

"Read it," he simply says.

Ryou looks down.

It's a barrage of disgust and familiarity that hits him when he sees what the item is.

Just like his school record, it's a manila folder. Just like his school record, on the tab, it reads: RYOU BAKURA. But _unlike_ his school record, it is also labeled "Patient File".

Ryou chuckles inwardly.

Yugi, who had peered at the object as soon as he could over Ryou's shoulder, exclaims,

"`Patient File'? Bakura, how'd you know these were here?"

Bakura chucks the second folder at the short boy.

"Don't ask questions, Yugi. Just read."

Yugi blinks, but doesn't say another word.

* * *

Soon, all six boys' files are distributed to their proper owners, and it's utter silence again as all the boys go through what ranges from weeks to years of confidential information about themselves.

Ryou reads his file with expectations of bad news and isn't _that_ bitter when he sees the reports of: _Indecisive, confused, rude, reckless, disobedient. Patient exhibits ill will towards those trying to help and shows signs of being unstable._

At that last part, "unstable", Ryou can't help but laugh.

Bakura looks up as he hears his best friend's chuckle. He smirks. "What?"

Ryou swallows. "`Shows signs of being unstable'," he quotes, and then looks up in his friend's eyes. "Well, I guess that's me, now."

Bakura rolls his eyes.

"That's _everybody_ at sometime in their life."

Now, across the room, Seto, as soon as he opens his file and skims the first page, slams it shut.

Everyone turns.

"Kaiba?" Yugi asks, genuinely a bit concerned.

Seto stares straight ahead, his eyes glimmering with tears, shaking a bit. He hesitates, and really only answers when Joey puts a soft hand on his arm to show that _he's_ very worried.

"It's a log," he starts, his voice quivering a bit. "A log recording of _every single one_ of my nightmares they know of." He looks down, and wraps his arms around himself. "Five years of nothing but terror and Hell," he mutters, and that's the end of that.

Joey's file makes him frown, (he reads it as he soothingly rubs Seto's back, by the way) because at the very end of the second page, it's written: _Patient does not see his own worth. _

As soon as he reads it, Joey mumbles,

"Liars."

Yugi sighs as he looks through his. His obsessive compulsive behaviors, as he reads about them, annoy _himself_. But he feels hopeless because he knows there's nothing he can do about them. Not now, at least.

Bakura slams his file shut after he's read a couple pages and mutters various obscenities at Dr. Sampson, the head psychiatrist that works exclusively with him and the one who wrote the majority of his papers.

Ryou raises an eyebrow.

Bakura stares back in response; his eyes narrow in thoughtfulness and bitterness.

"I'm a `disaster', `hopeless', and `dangerous'," he quotes angrily, and Ryou frowns.

He _really_ feels bad for Bakura, sometimes.

Then, everyone turns to Tristan, who is simply lying on the chaise lounge, almost asleep, file closed neatly next to him.

Joey stares.

"You're okay with what they wrote about you?" he asks softly.

Tristan shakes his head. "They said some pretty bad stuff."

Bakura blinks. "And you're not pissed…why?"

Tristan smiles smugly.

"Because at the very end they wrote: CURED."

* * *

R&R guys =)


	16. You Could, You Can

**AN: **Hey everyone.

Thanks so much for all the comments. =)

I've _officially_ finished writing this story, but I've still got a lot of editing and whatnot to do, so bear with me xD

The lyrics in this chapter are from Panic! At The Disco's 'Nails for Breakfast, Tacks for Snacks'...I was listening to it and it fits pretty well.

Anyway…

…Enjoy!

* * *

Borderline

"_Without music, life would be a mistake." _

_-Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche_

* * *

**16 ; You Could, You Can**

* * *

**DISCLAIMER: **I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh!, and this storyline is absolutely, positively fictional. I mean no offense to anyone.

* * *

The six young men are hurrying back upstairs at 3:45 AM because, even though they won't admit it, they're all exhausted. (Even Bakura, who never sleeps, really.)

When they're trekking through the hallway that led them to the tunnels, Joey pulls his sweater closer around himself and mutters,

"It's so friggin' _cold_."

He then looks up at his best friend, who is wearing nothing but his thin pajama top.

"Seto, how are you not _freezing_?"

Seto smiles a little and wraps his arm around Joey's shoulder, pulling his best friend closer, and their body heat together makes it _a lot_ less colder for both. Joey grins.

"Oh," he whispers, and then looks back down, blushing a tiny bit.

Meanwhile, Ryou is walking next to Bakura in the far back of the group, watching Joey and Seto, who are up ahead. He frowns and pulls his jacket (he was smart enough to bring one) closer around himself.

"Bakura?" he starts, feeling sort of unsure.

Bakura doesn't look at him but still answers,

"Yeah?"

Ryou swallows a little; he takes a breath in.

"Did you really mean it when you said we were like Seto and Joey?"

There. He asked it. The question that had been nagging at him (as much as he didn't want to admit it) ever since the day Bakura told him that.

There was just this little voice in the back of Ryou's mind that kept telling him that this was a game. Bakura wasn't mentally stable, and because of that, Bakura couldn't _really_ have a best friend; after all, look at how Yugi and his relationship turned out!

Ryou and Bakura's friendship was a game for Bakura in that little voice's opinion, and there were no real connections. In a moment, Bakura could drop it all and Ryou would be left hanging by a thread.

This whole "I'm-worried-and-unsure" thing is new for Ryou; he doesn't like it.

There's a silence after he asks his question. Ryou feels like a total _imperfect_ idiot, and he opens his mouth to say something to negate his past sentence.

"Seto and Joey?" Bakura suddenly replies, stopping Ryou.

Ryou blinks. Bakura isn't mad like he expected him to be. His voice is all pleasant surprise and thoughtfulness.

Ryou nods. "Yeah, Seto and Joey."

Bakura and Ryou turn simultaneously to each other. They stare. Bakura blinks only once.

"No. We're not close in that way."

Ryou's heart falls.

Bakura smirks.

"We're close in our _own_ way."

* * *

The boys are standing in a group in the hallway back upstairs.

Their rooms are a few steps ahead, and they're just waiting to give goodbyes. Then, they'll all head to bed.

Problem is, no one knows what to _say_.

Finally, Yugi, the seemingly bravest one of the group at the moment, speaks up.

"Thank you, Bakura. This was really fun," he says, and then he smiles a little.

Everyone else simply blinks after Yugi speaks, but inside they're all bursting with shock.

Yugi is actually _talking_ to Bakura after their huge fight.

Bakura licks his lips. He's not intimidated in the least bit, even though all eyes are on him, awaiting his answer. He nods slowly.

"Yeah," is all he whispers in reply.

There's an awkward silence.

Joey swallows. He takes a breath in and shuffles on his feet unsurely before,

"So does this mean we still hate each other?"

Everyone stares.

Bakura smirks.

"Why, Mr. Wheeler, what _ever_ made you think that we _hated_ each other?" he says wryly.

Joey looks down.

"Well, I mean, you had that one fight with Yugi and we all had this unspoken rule where we weren't talking so…" He trails off, because he really doesn't know where to go from there, and he's kind of realized that Bakura's comment was simply sarcastic so he feels like an idiot for even _answering_.

Seto rolls his eyes.

"You guys," he starts. Everyone turns to him. "After tonight, can we just call a truce?"

There's silence.

Then, Yugi speaks up.

"This kind of all got out of hand," he whispers.

Ryou shifts his body weight from one foot to another. Yugi's completely right; their fight and "silent treatments" _w__ere_ ridiculous, but there's no way he's going to actually _admit_ that.

Seto sighs. "Yeah, it did get out of hand. And after such a great time like tonight…why go back to being all nasty or whatever? That would just mean all the fun we had was a waste."

Tristan suddenly decides to say something.

"I'm going to bed."

And before anyone has a chance to say even one word, he's disappeared into his room.

There's silence after Tristan leaves; Ryou's really getting sick of silence.

"Okay, so, _fine_. We don't want to kill each other anymore. We'll at least talk and be civil to one another," Ryou exclaims suddenly, aggravated with and breaking the quiet. "_Deal_?"

Everyone stares at him.

Then, Bakura smirks.

"I'm in," he announces.

And once the two sociopaths have agreed, everyone else is all for it, too.

Thus ended Ward 227's feud.

* * *

"Try a minor third," Ryou suggests, leaning over Bakura on the piano a couple afternoons after their tunnel adventure.

Bakura quickly presses the right keys and nods at the result.

"That's sounds good," he mummers, and erases a couple notes to change on the piece of manuscript paper in front of him.

Ryou smiles smugly. "_Of course_ it sounds good. _I _suggested it after all," he says, only halfway joking.

Bakura turns and smirks at him. "Whatever," he replies, rolls his eyes, and then turns back to the keyboard. He starts to play a tune Ryou knows he's been writing for a while, but then, Bakura opens his mouth and starts to sing, too.

"_The hospice is __a relaxing weekend getaway where you're a cut above all the rest. Sick and sad patients on first-name basis with all the top physicians…_"

There's a tone of bitterness and true emotion to the lyrics as he sings, and Ryou is utterly blown away by that.

He finds it fascinating that Bakura can apparently sing things with such real emotion, and yet not show any real emotion in his actual _life_ or _self_.

Ryou bites his lower lip a little, asking the question that's been nagging at him for a while now.

"What's in your journal?"

Bakura suddenly flies around, glaring. "What's in my journal is none of your business."

Ryou swallows. "All right," he mutters in response, a little bit defensive, and then turns back to the violin he was messing with before Bakura's piece.

Bakura turns back around on the piano bench and starts playing the beginning to a version of "Karma Police" by Radiohead (another one of those bands Ryou's parents hated him listening to) they wrote.

Suddenly, the boys hear someone walk in.

Immediately, Ryou's violin and Bakura's piano playing stop mid-song.

Duke Devlin stands in the doorway, smiling. "Hey guys," he greets. "Long time no see."

Bakura doesn't say or do anything in reply. Ryou waves a little.

"Are you coming to kick us out of here?" Bakura finally speaks, asking drearily.

Duke frowns a little. "No. I was just wondering—" Suddenly, he stops speaking. It looks like he's a little nervous and feels kind of intimidated.

Ryou smiles. He likes that effect he and Bakura have on people.

"_Yes_, Duke?" Bakura urges, his tone impatient.

Duke lets a breath out. "I was wondering if I could play with you guys."

Ryou and Bakura are speechless.

But Bakura, ever the one to regain his composure rather quickly and come back with some kind of remark, replies disbelievingly,

"You _play_?"

Duke nods. Without a word, he confidently walks into the Art Room and saunters over to the table covered in instruments. He picks up an acoustic bass guitar (Ryou loves that guitar, by the way; before Rockford he had never actually seen an acoustic bass guitar, and he thinks it's really awesome.) He then pulls out a chair, plops in it, and starts to play a few measures of music he's obviously memorized.

Once he's done, Ryou finds that his jaw is hanging open a bit in surprise, and Bakura is speechless for the second time in a matter of ten minutes (Which is, as one can expect, unheard of.).

Duke smiles.

"I play guitar, too, but right now I'm really into bass," he explains.

Bakura smirks.

"So you're not as much of a suck-up, goody-two-shoes as I thought, Devlin," he says, and Ryou is quite surprised. That comment is Bakura's twisted version of a compliment. Bakura normally never gives twisted versions of compliments. Ever. Not even to _him_.

Ryou feels jealousy swirl suddenly inside of him.

"All right, _Duke_," Ryou starts, his tone a bit more bitter than he wants it. "See if you can keep up."

With that, Ryou picks up an acoustic guitar and pulls the strap over himself. He starts to play one of the trickiest songs he knows, his well-trained fingers flying over the frets and strings.

When Ryou plays music, he's lost.

He's lost, but he knows his way. He gets lost in a world all his own, where people and feelings and problems don't exist, and it's just time signatures and melodies and chords and accompaniments and bass clef and treble clef and grace notes and eighth notes and tempo and pedal and strumming and magic. He gets lost there, because that is where he feels he's closest to perfect. He gets wound up deep in music, and in music is where Ryou just _clicks_.

While most people would get lost that deep in the music and passion, he knows his way, and can go in or out of that wonderful world whenever he wants.

And that's the world he left to when he was playing with Duke, so when he finished the song, he was still a bit frazzled from his music experience and almost completely unaware that Duke had finished, too.

_Duke had finished, too._

Duke managed to keep up a good rhythm and beat while playing with Ryou.

Duke looks up and smiles, green eyes wide.

"You're friggin' amazing, man," he says.

Ryou swallows. His face doesn't change after the sincerely sweet compliment from Duke; it remains etched in that disappointed, disbelieving look.

He gives a glance to Bakura.

The slightly older boy is staring at Duke, an interested look in his eye. That oh-so-well-known smirk is on his face.

Ryou looks back at Duke.

"Go ahead and come and play with us whenever you want," he grumbles softly, and then he sits the guitar back down because he doesn't really feel like playing anymore.

* * *

The next day, Duke comes back. He's all glowing smiles and sparkling, excited eyes as he ambles in, dressed oh-so nicely in that uniform of his.

"So guys, whadda ya wanna play today?"

Ryou stares, his gaze narrow.

He was kind of hoping Duke would chicken out and, like, never _ever_ set foot into the ward again, or something.

Bakura stands up.

"How about something by blink-182?" Bakura suggests, but since it's Bakura, it's not really a suggestion. More like a command.

Duke shrugs, smiling a little. "Sure."

He picks up the bass guitar, and then Bakura starts tapping out the opening melody on the piano. The two start the song together, with Ryou standing off the side, watching with arms crossed.

Finally, when it's about to hit the chorus, Bakura slams his hands down on the keys suddenly, and both Ryou and Duke cringe a little at the unpleasant noise.

Bakura flies around, glaring angrily at Ryou.

"Ryou, where's your guitar?" he snaps.

Ryou blinks, but then he catches himself and smirks.

"Oh, sorry I forgot," he says, his tone dripping with sarcasm that Duke pretends not to notice and Bakura catches right away.

"Well then get it _now_, play it, and shut _up_," Bakura orders, his voice frighteningly bitter and his eyes narrow.

Ryou glares, grabs the guitar, and loudly plops down in a chair.

Duke twists his fingers awkwardly. (It's not the easiest thing to be caught in a fight between Ryou and Bakura.)

"Start from the bridge," Bakura instructs, and then music is filling the room once again.

* * *

=)


	17. Sit Tight

**AN: **Hey everybody!

Thank you so, _so_ much for all your amazing comments.

For those of you that got a tad confused I am not done with this story, there's a fair few chapters to come yet. BUT I have finished writing the first draft of the story, but I'm probably gonna change/edit a fair bit before I post it =)

* * *

Borderline 

_"So progress report: _

_I am missing you to death."_

_-Fall Out Boy, "I Slept With Someone in Fall Out Boy And All I Got Was This Stupid Song Written About Me"_

* * *

**17 ; Sit Tight**

* * *

**DISCLAIMER: **I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh!, and this storyline is absolutely, positively fictional. I mean no offense to anyone.

* * *

Duke comes every day for a week.

Everyday that man walks in, always grinning, and plays whatever Bakura or Ryou tells him.

He plays it well, too.

And every time Duke plays, Ryou watches as Bakura smirks and watches the man. Ryou watches as Bakura occasionally nods in approval or joins in on a certain part of the song, and Ryou notices how they both play together _so_ well.

And Ryou knows that he might just be losing his best friend.

Ryou is walking down the hallway one morning when he hears something.

By the nurses' station, Jared and Duke are standing, talking. Jared is clearly speaking to his subordinate about something important, and Duke is nodding solemnly.

Ryou smirks.

He slides up sneakily to hide behind a wall and listen in on the conversation. (He's good at that sort of thing.)

"Duke, I just want you to be careful," Jared says, all seriousness.

Duke frowns. "Don't worry. I've only been going for about a week, and we just play music. If anything, I think it's helping them," he replies.

Jared doesn't say anything for a moment; he just stares thoughtfully. Then, he nods slowly. "All right. But please, Duke, be careful. I know you're the closest in age to them, and I know that you want to help, but they're _sociopaths_, don't forget. They're not normal."

Ryou smiles at the head guard's words.

Duke nods understandingly. "I'm completely aware and careful of that," he assures. "Trust me, I know what I'm doing."

Jared smiles. Then, he leans in closer. "And Duke? Keep a close eye on Ryou. I'm worried about him."

Ryou frowns; immediately, his stomach drops. What did he _tell_ them? Didn't he _tell_ them to _not_ worry about him?

"He's hanging around Bakura, you know. That's not good," Jared finishes, and Duke simply blinks.

Then, the younger man shuffles on his feet uneasily.

"Yeah, Jared. I know," he finally mutters in reply.

Jared nods and smiles. "Also, Duke, I'd like you to see if there's any way this whole `music' thing could be used to get Bakura to cooperate in therapy. The way you talk about it, it seems like when he plays, those walls of his go down. See if you can look into that more; try and get inside his head so we can _stop_ this mess."

Ryou's jaw drops a little.

No. No, no, _no_.

They're going to use Bakura's passion against him.

Duke just stares at his superior for a moment. Then, he clears his throat.

"All right, but, I have to, um, go now. But I'll talk to you later," Duke says, and when Jared nods, he scampers off as fast as he can.

* * *

When Ryou was little, the kids hated him because he told secrets.

Even if it was his "best friend" who told him, Ryou would run off the second after the information was revealed and spread it around the playground.

It concerned his teachers.

His parents tried to talk to him about it.

But Ryou only _really_ stopped telling secrets when he finally had no information to actually _tell_, because after a while no one told him secrets anymore.

Ryou Bakura thinks back on those kindergarten days because Ryou Bakura has a secret now, when he's eighteen years old.

He has a secret that will give him his best friend back all for himself.

What Jared said to Duke about trying to "get inside his head" would make Bakura _so_ furious that Duke would be forever banned from the Art Room and it would just be Bakura and Ryou again. Bakura and Ryou would "be close in their own way" again, and Ryou would be oh-so happy.

But as soon as Ryou walks into the Art Room, at 12:45 (the typical time they met there to play), all anxious smiles and eager to share what he knows, his heart falls to his feet.

There, Duke stands smiling with Seto, Yugi, Tristan, and Joey.

Bakura is sitting confidently in front of the group, staring at all of them.

No one has acknowledged Ryou's presence.

He walks in fully.

"What's going on?" he asks, his tone angry and annoyed.

Duke turns around. He smiles brightly.

"Oh, hey, Ryou. The other day, Seto asked me if he and the other guys could come and join us here to play some stuff. So I brought `em and Bakura said it was fine," he explains.

Ryou wants to scream and kick and hit and tackle Duke to the ground.

_No_.

_Duke_ was already enough.

Now, _everyone else_ wanted to come and join in, too.

Now, it wasn't special "Bakura and Ryou time" when they came to play music. Now, apparently, it was "Every fucking person in Ward 227 time".

And the worst part was, Bakura apparently _agreed_ to it.

There would be no "secret-telling" for Ryou today, and there probably wouldn't be for a long, long time.

If he dared to tell the secret now, everyone would gang up on him in defense of Duke (because, really, they'd probably think Ryou was just being a jealous jerk [which, admittedly, he kind of _is_]), and Bakura wouldn't believe him and it'd just be a _mess_.

Hopelessness wells up in the pit of his stomach.

Ryou's losing Bakura faster and faster.

And there's not a _thing_ he can do about it.

Ryou is sulking in the corner of the Art Room.

He's sitting on top of an old guitar case, and his knees are pulled up to his chest.

For the past half an hour, everyone has ignored him.

All they've been doing is blabbering about what he and Bakura have written and ideas to add to the songs or notes to start new ones. (Ryou's _really_ furious that they're going to dare and touch his and Bakura's songs.)

Not once in the past thirty minutes has someone picked up an actual instrument.

"Okay, so, let's get this all straight. Who plays what?" Bakura suddenly asks, demanding silence just by simply speaking.

Seto uncrosses his arms for a moment. "I play bass."

Tristan answers, "Guitar."

Joey shyly smiles. "Guitar and piano and drums."

Duke smiles. "Bass and guitar."

Yugi stares at Bakura; there's something unspoken between them in that moment, and Bakura says,

"I _know_, Yugi. But don't tell _me_, tell _them_."

Yugi sighs. He turns toward the rest of the group. "I play drums."

Now, everyone's turned to the back towards Ryou.

He chuckles inwardly.

Well, what do you know; he thinks bitterly, they actually do want to include me.

"I play guitar, drums, bass, keyboard, piano, violin, and cello," he says, and smiles smugly when everyone's jaws drop.

Bakura rolls his eyes.

"Everyone grab an instrument they know and let's get started, then," he announces, purposely taking the attention off of Ryou.

Duke, Joey, Tristan, Yugi, and Seto obey.

And Ryou?

Well, he frowns, but he gets up anyway.

* * *

Right before the boys all start playing, Duke pulls Ryou aside.

Ryou wants to yank Duke off of his arm and chuck the guy across the room, but instead he just narrows his gaze a little bit and keeps a clearly annoyed and/or disgusted look (whichever is worse) on his face as the man starts talking to him.

Duke ignores Ryou's hostility and simply smiles weakly.

"Ryou," he starts.

Ryou rolls his eyes.

"Look, I just want to say…thanks," Duke says, obviously feeling a bit awkward.

Ryou blinks as soon as the words come out, trying to hide his surprise and wide eyes.

One of the things about Duke that annoys Ryou the most is his genuine "niceness".

Ryou's not used to "niceness".

"What for?" Ryou replies in a bitter, disbelieving sort of voice.

Duke had nothing to thank him for. In fact, Ryou was hoping Duke would hate him because of the way he was purposely snubbing him.

"For letting the other guys and me play with you and Bakura. I know this was sort of a special thing for you two, and I appreciate you letting us join in. It's nice for us all; we haven't gotten to play instruments in forever," Duke explains, and then his smile widens at the end of his statement. "It means a lot."

Ryou swallows heavily.

The, he shakes Duke off and looks away, muttering,

"Whatever."

* * *

Hurrhurr. I'm rather fond of jealous Ryou =)


	18. You Won't Tell What I Said

**AN:** I edited so much of this story yesterday, my fingers _still _hurt.

I just realized that this is the first chapter with a genuine Tendershipping moment xD

Anyway, long chapter ahead.

You guys deserve it `cause you're beyond amazing =]

* * *

Borderline

_"So angels…_

_Inside is the only way out."_

_-Vienna Teng, "Drought"_

* * *

**18 ; You Won't Tell What I Said**

* * *

**DISCLAIMER: **I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh!, and this storyline is absolutely, positively fictional. I mean no offense to anyone.

* * *

Ryou blames music.

Ryou blames music, because music made it _okay_.

He figures he was _already_ a bit warmed up to the idea of everyone playing together because of Duke thanking him that one time.

Sure, when Duke _first_ thanked him, Ryou brushed him off and walked away with a rude "whatever", but that was just _Ryou_. When Ryou feels uncomfortable like he did, Ryou gets nasty and brushes the situation off and tries to act like it _didn't_ affect him when it really _did_.

But as much as he felt weird around Duke's kindness, and as much as he _loathed_ to admit it, the sincerity and gratefulness in Duke's comment made Ryou hate the whole situation just a _little bit_ less.

And he thinks that because of that he was more open to the experience, in a way.

But then, of course, _music_ entered the picture.

And when _music_ showed up, well…Ryou's hate was completely gone from that point on. Because if _music_ was involved, in Ryou's opinion, it was okay.

That one afternoon when all of them first played together, when each person in the Art Room threw in a bit of their own talent and the whole ward lit up with wonderful sound, Ryou knew it was magic.

The magic of music completely changed his mind.

As hard as it was to believe, Ryou was warming up to more than just Bakura.

And now, every day, he and Duke and Joey and Seto and everyone all get together, and they play. They play and play and only stop when they have to.

Those who can hop from one instrument to another instrument do, and they all share songs or tips with each other.

Ryou decides that this sort of "musical camaraderie" is the closest thing he'll ever get to _really_ helpful therapy at Rockford.

But the most interesting thing to come out of this all is, now, Ryou strangely isn't worried. Ryou isn't worried that he's going to lose Bakura, because now Bakura's not his only friend.

Sure, Bakura's still his _best_ friend, but he doesn't rely on Bakura like he did before.

Now, he's got Yugi and Seto and Duke and Joey and even Tristan.

And, for now, Ryou dubs these new friendships "okay".

But just for now.

* * *

Music has brought out interesting things in other people, too.

Ryou notices that Tristan is actually _socializing_ with people now. He doesn't stay locked up in his room; he comes every day at 12:45 and plays for hours with them all. Even if he doesn't really talk, he's still there.

Joey seems a tiny, tiny bit more confident in himself with music. He plays and doesn't let anything stop him; he knows music and he knows it well.

Duke isn't one of the "guards", anymore. He's not this scary, annoying, unknown authority figure anymore.

Now, Duke is one of "them".

He's funny and witty and happy and just a great guy. He's nothing like Jared. And everyone loves him for it.

Yugi and Seto seem happier. They smile a lot and laugh and joke.

And even _Bakura_ sits back and smirks more than he did before.

But most of all, Ryou realizes he isn't still obsessing about The Secret. He's not worried about ratting Duke out or Jared and everyone trying to "get inside Bakura's head".

He just lets it all be for now.

No doubt, though (oh, _no doubt_), if needed, Ryou still _has_ The Secret.

And Ryou _will_ use it.

* * *

Yugi plays a quick rhythm on the drums.

Then, he adjusts the blond bits of his hair back out of his face and places the drumsticks down.

It's Friday afternoon at about 2:30, and everyone is just resting.

They're all sitting, some holding instruments in their hands, others not. It's silent, until finally, Tristan stands up.

"I'll be right back," he mumbles, and steps over Duke, who's lazily sprawled out on the floor.

Once he's gone from the room, Ryou blurts out,

"I can't believe he's actually _here_ with us."

A chuckle resonates throughout the room.

"Tell me about it," Yugi says, and rolls his eyes a little.

Then there's silence again.

Ryou takes a deep breath in.

He looks over to his right.

On the piano bench lies Bakura. His hair hangs over his face, as usual, and he is blankly staring at the ceiling.

Ryou hasn't talked to Bakura in a week and a half.

They haven't said more than one or two words to each other.

There have been too many other people around to talk to, and since everyone's days were now filled only with therapy, eating (he and Bakura were even silent at the lunch table together), and the Art Room, they didn't really talk outside of music, either.

And quite honestly, Ryou's sick of it.

He misses his best friend.

"Bakura…"

He feels nervous (to his utter shock) as he reaches forward slowly and taps Bakura's shoulder.

The boy turns and stares at him, and Ryou feels his heart pound and he smiles as a smirk crawls on the other boy's face.

"Hey, Ryou," Bakura greets cheerfully and then sits up. "Long time no talk."

Inside, Ryou's bursting with joy that he's being spoken to and not getting snubbed or yelled at, because for a while there, it kind of seemed like Bakura was _mad_ at him.

But on the outside, Ryou just nods. Then, he blurts out the first thing that comes to mind.

"How did he do it?"

Bakura blinks. "Who?" he replies.

Ryou stares. "Tristan. How did Tristan manage to convince everyone he was clean? Like, didn't they do tests or whatever to see if he had drugs in his system?"

Bakura smirks.

"I love that you wonder about this kind of stuff," he says, and Ryou beams.

He just got a genuine twisted Bakura compliment.

Before Bakura has a chance to answer, Seto's tired voice chimes in,

"There was a point they stopped testing him for drugs or alcohol. They figured he was far enough into the rehab process to stop checking up on him. He managed to stay clean up until after they stopped the tests; then after, it was safe and he and Andy arranged it and Andy brings him the pot and he smokes it in his room. No one checks either, `cause he's pretty freakin' good at hiding it."

Everyone's silent.

Ryou squirms a little.

"You…know about Tristan?" he asks.

Seto stares at Ryou out of the corner of his eye, wordlessly. Yugi is the one that takes the liberty of actually answering.

"We _all_ know, Ryou. We just pieced suspicious things we noticed together bit by bit, and after a while, it became pretty clear that Tristan wasn't clean. Then, after that one day you and Bakura went in his room and talked with him, we knew something was up without a doubt."

Ryou frowns.

He just lost a secret with Bakura. Apparently, the fact that Tristan was still doing pot in his room thanks to Andy wasn't that unknown, after all.

One of the few precious things he gets to share with his best friend: secrets. And he just lost one.

He doesn't like that _at all_.

Ryou pulls on Bakura's arm.

"Come on," he urges almost desperately (which scares him a little bit) and stands up from the chair next to the piano bench that he was sitting in.

Bakura gives him a weird look, but he sits up from his relaxed position and follows the younger boy anyway. The two wordlessly walk out into the hallway, and they ignore all curious looks shot at them from the guys as they leave the Art Room.

Finally, once alone and sure that there are no guards around, Bakura pulls Ryou's grip off of him. "What's wrong?" he asks, his tone oh-so slightly annoyed.

Ryou just keeps walking farther down the corridor.

Bakura follows.

"_Ryou_," he prods. "_Answer_ me."

Finally, the younger boy flies around. His face is etched in a frustrated, almost sad look, and he huffs, his pouty lips set in a frown.

"We don't have anymore secrets," he softly complains, crossing his arms and looking to the side, sounding more like a six-year-old boy complaining about not having any more cookies for dessert than a jealous eighteen year old complaining about his relationship with his best friend.

It's _so_ Ryou that Bakura can't help but smirk.

"Oh really?" Bakura responds, raising an eyebrow. "That's what you're so upset about? Secrets?"

Ryou stares at him; he can't help but catch the mocking tone in his friend's voice.

"Yeah," he says. He's decided he's going to ignore that mocking tone. "It's just…the tunnels were supposed to be our secret, but everyone showed up and now _all_ the guys know about them. The Art Room and music were supposed to be our secret, but once again, everyone else came into the picture. Now, our little talk with Tristan and discovering that he smokes pot isn't apparently a secret of ours, either! And then, like, when Duke showed up and everyone else showed up to start playing music with us I was _so_ friggin' jealous that you have no idea! That was supposed to be our special thing!"

Ryou pauses. He takes a breath in and avoids looking at his friend's face, and before he can stop himself…

"I don't _like_ this, Bakura," he finally whispers. He looks down at his shoes. "I haven't talked to you in so long. I feel like I'm kind of losing you. Because, like, even though I have other friends now, you're still my best friend. You're still, like, my favorite, or whatever."

Silence.

Ryou's heart begins to pound.

_What_ has he just _done_?

He just poured emotions out that he didn't even know he could _feel_ anymore. And he poured them out to the most emotionless person he knows—Bakura. Now, Bakura probably thinks he's a weakling. He probably thinks that he's a horrible sociopath. He probably thinks it's funny or maybe insulting or infuriating or—

"You like secrets?"

Ryou's head flies up. He stares at his friend, wide eyed.

That wasn't quite the reply he expected.

Bakura is staring at him blankly, but there's a teeny spark of thoughtfulness in his eye if you look closely.

"Yeah. I do," Ryou finally manages to get out in response. "I used to tell secrets all the time when I was a kid; people hated me for it."

Then, it happens.

Bakura plants the smallest, most tender of kisses on the corner of Ryou's mouth.

It's…interesting.

Ryou's never really been this close with that many people before. Not truly close like right now. (Which scares him and fascinates him all at once.)

And it's extra weird because, he_ enjoys_ it.

Aren't sociopaths supposed to be _numb_ to feelings?

But _wait_.

Ryou's only a _borderline_ sociopath.

...But Bakura's a _total_ sociopath.

And now Ryou doesn't know what to think. But Ryou won't question it, of course.

The _last_ thing Ryou wants to do now is make Bakura angry.

* * *

Bakura throws his head back, puts his hands on his hips, and laughs.

Ryou smiles despite himself. It's a true laugh, and Ryou loves it.

"So…" he starts, but Bakura interrupts by gliding up and putting his arm around Ryou's shoulder, and then the two begin to stroll down the hallway some more.

"You want a secret? Okay. Do you know why Yugi's here?" Bakura says rather casually.

Ryou shrugs, trying his best to ignore the awkward blush creeping up his cheeks from ''the incident'' that just occurred.

"Something to do with OCD, right?" he offers.

Bakura purses his lips together thoughtfully.

"Mmm, kind of. But he got the OCD `cause of _me_," he explains, and at that last part, his voice takes on this sickly prideful tone that, when equipped with the Bakura-smirk, sends a chill down Ryou's spine.

"Oh," Is all Ryou gets out, but his eyes are glowing with curiosity.

"He pretty much went crazy after I left for Rockford. At least, that's what I overheard his parents saying," Bakura then pauses before adding, "I eavesdropped on the first meeting to bring him here, by the way," he explains, and Ryou chuckles. "Basically, he blamed himself for my suicide attempt, and always wanted to try his best and be perfect in everything so he wouldn't `cause a problem like that again', quote-un-quote, thus sparking violent obsessive behaviors."

"Makes sense," he admits, and Bakura shrugs.

"I guess. In a twisted way," the older boy replies.

Now, the two stop strolling and are standing in front of the living room.

Bakura pulls Ryou's hand.

"Come on," he says playfully with a smirk, and before Ryou can protest, they're in the living room, the "un-cool", "totally off limits" room, plopped down on a stiff, ugly, yellow chaise lounge.

Ryou frowns.

"Why are we in here?" he asks.

Bakura shrugs.

"I dunno. `Cause no one else is."

Ryou smiles and doesn't complain anymore.

Bakura then leans back, resting his head in Ryou's lap. He begins fiddling with his fingers and Ryou begins fiddling with Bakura's soft hair.

"Now, moving on. Wanna hear the story of Seto and Joey?" he asks and looks up at Ryou from his point of view as best he can (Which is really rather adorable looking.).

Ryou nods eagerly.

"Okay. So, basically, with those two, they were already kind of messed up before Rockford. Joey was teased all the time during his _entire_ childhood and had the self-esteem of a _rock_. Seto was depressed, which is what they say causes extra-horrible nightmares like his in the first place, and was sent to some weird camp where satanic kids beat him up. The two became friends in their senior year of high school, and as the years went along, their problems escalated. Finally it got to the point where Seto refused to go into his bedroom or even the _upstairs_ because it reminded him of falling asleep and having nightmares too much, and Joey refused to, like, leave his room because he was so socially nervous and cut off. That's when they shipped them off to Rockford—together. The two have been close forever. Tristan followed Joey and Seto here shortly after, and as far as I can tell, Andy's _not_ psycho and won't be joining us any time soon," Bakura tells, not missing a beat and quickly explaining the entire story.

As soon as he's done, Ryou's jaw is hanging wide open.

"…Wow," is all he manages to blubber out.

Bakura nods.

"Yeah. We're all pretty screwed up."

Ryou swallows.

"How do you find all of this out?" he asks, truly in awe.

Bakura smirks.

"I have my ways. Now, what do you say we go back and finish that one chorus?"

* * *

Ryou is angry.

He's torn absolutely _everything_ apart in his room. Shirts are strewn about, his jeans are hanging across chairs, and he still can't find them.

"Where _did_ I put it?" he groans to himself, and runs his hands through his hair, frustrated. He takes a deep breath, attempting to pull himself together a bit, and puts his hands on his hips. He scans the room once more.

His favorite shirt.

A dark purple and black striped one.

He doesn't even remember where he last saw it, because for the past week and a half he's been wearing his other shirts and hasn't paid much attention to it like he normally would.

Finally, Ryou sighs again and decides to check his bedside table once more. He bends down to open the drawer when—

A shuffle of paper.

Something falls next to him.

He looks.

There, on the ground, lies a brown book. A pen is tucked into one of the pages, sticking out of the top, and Ryou recognizes it right away.

All worries about losing his favorite shirt fly away.

_Bakura's journal._

* * *

At first, Ryou can't really move. It's a total shock to have something so guarded all of a sudden fall in front of you, and Ryou also knows that, knowing Bakura, he's probably got the thing booby-trapped or something. Ryou doesn't want to risk anything by being too hasty. Not to mention the fact that The Journal was the _one_ thing Bakura seemed freakishly protective of, and in a way, he wants to respect his friend's feelings.

But then again, _Bakura's_ journal is lying out in plain sight and no one else is around and Ryou is Ryou.

So, slowly, oh-so slowly, he bends over towards the object.

Gently, he reaches out, and his fingertips graze the top of the book. It's smooth. Ryou takes a breath in and picks it up.

He swallows as it opens and he holds it in his hands.

The milky pages are rougher than Ryou expected as his fingertips brush over them, but if he had to guess, he'd assume that a sturdy page is the kind of thing a writer _wants_.

The paper itself is covered in neat, black lines of cursive. The writing is fluid, full of emotion—the exact opposite of the writer.

Along the sides of the writing, in the border or sometimes around a paragraph or sentence, drawings decorate. Long, twirling swirls and lines and bats and birds and knotted trees are sketched in dark ink.

Ryou begins to read.

_I drive you crazy_, it starts,_ You can't handle me. These "doctors" that work with Ward 227 can't handle me. Therapy is filled with clever lines and witty smiles and bent truths and surprising twists —not "breakthroughs" and "discoveries". These "psychiatrists" can't "heal" me no matter what they try. No method or theory will __ever__ fix me. And you know what? I'm fine with that. I'll never leave them—or you. I'll never __quite__ leave this snake pit. I may be sent somewhere else, another hospital maybe, even jail. But the impressions I leave here at Rockford on the guards and doctors and patients will __always__ be here, etched into the darkest corners of memories. And as for __me__? Well, I'll __always__ be toying with thoughts and feelings and people. It's who I am. It's a __habit__._

Ryou bites his lower lip.

_I drive you crazy._

_Who_ did Bakura address this entry to?

Ryou notices that what he's reading is in the middle of the journal. So, curious, he flips to the first page and his brown eyes widen as he notices the date.

Two years ago.

Bakura's had this journal since he first came to Rockford.

But, also, Ryou notices that Bakura's earlier journal entries are not addressed to anyone in particular. That means that the person that Bakura's writing to apparently is newer to the ward.

Ryou quickly leafs back to the page he was reading earlier.

_Now, enough about Rockford and how useless it is. We both already know that. Let's talk about something else, shall we? How about __you__? I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. A million and one times—I hate you. But you know what else? I think I'm only __supposed__ to hate you; I don't think I really do. I think, to be honest, I absolutely find you to be one of the most interesting, truthful, eager, amazing people I've ever known. And for me, a full-blown, proud sociopath, to admit something like that is saying something. _

_I've watched you change. You came here filled with a way of thinking that was so similar to mine that it __almost__ scared me (__Almost__. I caught myself before it actually __did__.). But your ideas and feelings were still so fresh—you hadn't learned to fully master the talents of being a sociopath. So I took you under my wing. At first, I thought it would just be a quick project that wouldn't take long—no strings attached. It would give me someone else to make mischief with. But then…I got to know you. I got to know you, and you got to know me._

_And you __loved__ everything I was and still am._

_Talk about an ego boost, huh? We became "best friends". As time went by, I watched you become more and more like me, proudly. I watched you feel confident in yourself; I watched you be sly and clever; I watched you not be afraid to the fullest extent._

_You always try to hang out with me. You get jealous when I don't pay all my attention to you._

_I'm stuck in your system. You can't get rid of me; I'll always be there. I've taught you. Now, you've embraced yourself fully.  
_

Ryou can hardly breathe as he reads the last sentence,

_You're like me now, Ryou. And you always will be._

* * *

The Journal is lying on the other side of the bed.

Ryou's at the head of the bed, knees curled up to his chest, his chin tucked in them, letting his eyes peer out across towards the very end of the mattress where the book lies.

Now Ryou knows.

Ryou knows why Bakura doesn't want anyone to read what he writes.

Because when he writes, Bakura writes his _feelings_.

And that's _so_ unlike Bakura that it's scary.

Ryou swallows.

He feels like he's in the Twilight Zone or something. He feels groggy and weird because he's not happy and hyper and bubbly like he normally is, and he's still in shock from reading what _Bakura_ wrote to _him_.

He's not sure what to think of it quite yet.

Bakura has a point.

Ryou _is_ so much like Bakura now. They _are_ best friends. And Ryou knows that if and when he leaves Rockford, the memories of knowing Bakura will never leave him. And he knows that the habits Bakura has helped him hone and bring out will never totally leave him, either.

For some reason, that _terrifies_ him.

And he can't quite figure out _why_.

Ryou reaches over and picks up the journal. He opens it; this time, it falls to a page written about an adventure of Bakura's in the tunnels.

He smirks a little bit as he reads the entry. It's filled with witty, sarcastic, cynical comments so like his best friend. As soon as he's done reading it, he sighs heavily.

_Why is this upsetting him so much?_

All of a sudden, the door to the room opens. Ryou's heart rate flies and he looks at who's entering.

In walk Yugi, Seto, Joey, and Tristan. They're all talking and laughing and don't notice Ryou until the door's shut.

Yugi smiles at first. "Oh hey, Ryou!" But then he frowns as soon as he sees his roommate's upset face. "W-What's wrong?"

Ryou swallows.

Should he _show_ them?

Should he show them _The Journal_?

Should he reveal to them a secret, mind-blowing side of one of the most enigmatic characters they've probably ever known? Or should he keep it inside his head?

For once in his life, Ryou doesn't feel like having a secret.

He throws the journal out in front of him on the bedspread.

Yugi's eyes widen and a few gasps resonate throughout the gaggle of young men.

"Is that…?" Seto starts, pointing.

Yugi nods. "Yeah. Yeah, it is."

Joey stares, unblinkingly. Then, he whispers out,

"We see him write in it all the time. But, never before has anyone actually—"

All of a sudden, a sharp comment from Yugi cuts Joey off,

"Did you read it?"

Ryou looks up into the boy's amazing purple eyes that are swirling with utter shock, a bit of jealously, and some anger.

Ryou nods, wordlessly.

Yugi purses his lips together.

"It fell in front of me when I was looking for my striped purple shirt. Like, I don't even know how it got in here!" Ryou says, suddenly defensive.

Yugi frowns.

"He hides it in here. They don't let him keep anything in seclusion, and he won't hide it in a public place like the TV room. I've seen him sneak it in here and hide it under your mattress. I'm surprised you've only just found it."

He pauses.

"But, unlike _you_, I _respect_ his privacy and never looked in it, even though I knew where it was," he finishes, glaring a little.

Ryou feels anger bubbling inside of him.

"Look, man, there's not even anything in it that exciting! Only a couple entries about his adventures in the tunnels or whatever and a couple of lines of lyrics!" Ryou exclaims, knowing that he's lying.

But he doesn't want to make it seem too enticing, and he feels like those entries that Bakura wrote to him are going to stay locked in Ryou's head and Ryou's head only.

All of a sudden, Seto flies to the head of the group.

"Seriously? Can we read them? That sounds interesting." he says excitedly.

Ryou blinks.

There's an awkward silence.

Ryou and Yugi look at each other for a moment. Their gazes don't falter one second. Then, Yugi sighs.

"Fine."

All the boys rush up to the bedside, and Ryou carefully opens The Journal to the correct page to let the group read about Bakura's tunnel adventures and a few lyrics.

As they read, everyone's absolutely entranced. Even Yugi seems really into it for all his previous hesitation.

Finally, they're done.

There's silence at first. Then,

"His lyrics are good," Tristan mummers, and everyone turns in shock.

Tristan stares.

"What? They are!" he exclaims in defense.

Everyone bursts into chuckles.

Joey sighs.

"We should ask him if we can put some of them to song," he whispers.

Seto smiles.

"Excellent idea, Joey."

Joey smiles shyly.

At the thought of confronting Bakura about his journal, Ryou's eyes widen to the size of cup saucers. He flies up, grabs the journal, and thrusts it back under the mattress.

He turns back to the group. Everyone's faces are etched with shock and annoyance.

Ryou glares.

"No. We are _not_ going to tell him about this," he says, his tone completely and utterly serious.

Seto glares.

"_Why_? `Cause you're afraid he'll blame you for sharing it with everyone and you'll lose your `oh-so-special' friendship?" he hisses.

Ryou returns Seto's nasty stare.

"I'll see you tomorrow," he says roughly, and with one huff and frown, Seto leaves. Joey follows, along with Yugi.

Tristan is the only one left standing with Ryou alone in the room.

Ryou sighs.

"What, Tristan?" he asks, his tone tired and not in the mood to be yelled at again.

Tristan shrugs.

He starts to walk out of the room.

But before he does, he reaches onto the desk by the door, moves a piece of paper, and grabs something.

Then, he puts the folded fabric down on the dresser.

"Nothing. I just found your shirt."

* * *

Reviews make me happy =)


	19. Hidden Value

**AN:** I can't think of anything to say about this chapter. Enjoy though =)

* * *

Borderline

_"I can't think of anything else to write about besides families. They are a metaphor for every other part of society."_

_-Anna Quidlen_

* * *

**19 ; Hidden Value**

* * *

**DISCLAIMER: **I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh!, and this storyline is absolutely, positively fictional. I mean no offense to anyone.

* * *

"It's my birthday."

Ryou looks up.

Bakura is smirking, leaning his head over Ryou's from behind.

Ryou feels a big smile crawl onto his face.

"I'm nineteen," Bakura proclaims, and hops to the front of Ryou's plastic chair. "They're getting me a chocolate cake for tonight."

Ryou glows; the thought of a truly happy, simple birthday celebration makes him feel all giddy.

"That's great! Happy birthday!" he says, and Bakura nods.

Then, Bakura plops onto the floor, cross-legged. He smirks up at Ryou.

"So, what's my present?" he asks.

Ryou's eyes widen.

Present?

What?

_How_?

How was he supposed to get a present for Bakura if the farthest he strayed from Rockford's grounds was the gardens out back once a day for forty-five minutes? He couldn't go into town. And he didn't even have any money! Did anyone _else_ get him a present—?

"I'm kidding, Ryou."

Ryou snaps out of his worried frenzy to see Bakura staring at him, trying to hold back a laugh.

Ryou can't help but breathe a sigh of relief.

"Oh. Okay," he says and smiles weakly.

Bakura throws his head back and finally lets out several chuckles.

"Yeah, don't get yourself all worked up, Ryou, even though it _was_ pretty funny to see your face. They don't let us get presents here," he says, and at the last part of his sentence, he frowns.

Ryou finds himself frowning, too.

_It must be hard for Bakura,_ he thinks.

Bakura has _no one_. He doesn't have a family that cares. He doesn't have a true control over himself or the environment he's in. He doesn't even have real love or feelings, it seems.

Before he knows it, Ryou is down on the ground pulling Bakura into his arms.

His heart is pounding and he feels Bakura tense up with the sudden hug, but he knows that for _once_ Bakura really needs to know that _someone_ cares.

That _he _cares.

"Once we get out of here, Bakura, I'll get you a present," he whispers, and Bakura pulls away.

"I-I have to go," he stammers, refusing to look into Ryou's brown eyes, and it's the one time Ryou has seen Bakura actually _show_ his discomfort.

* * *

In September, the boys watch as the traffic outside of Rockford's grounds gets busier as the students pour into the state college that's just down the road.

All six patients are sitting at the windows, lined up one morning, watching.

Yugi sighs wishfully.

"Do you guys ever think we'll get to go to college?" he asks.

Joey squirms uncomfortably. "I think it'd be kind of fun," he says softly.

Bakura snorts.

"Psh, yeah right. Having a bunch of know-it-all, elitist professors cramming useless information down your throat _really_ sounds fun," he says, his tone dripping with sarcasm.

Joey frowns and Seto elbows Bakura roughly, purposely.

Bakura rolls his eyes.

"_Whatever_, you guys. It's not like we _could_, anyway. I mean, it's not like we're even _normal_."

And then, he gets up and storms out.

There's silence after he leaves because everyone knows he's right.

* * *

On Halloween, Kaiba is hiding in the bathrooms.

He refuses to come out, and has locked the door.

It would be funny if it weren't pathetic.

Duke sighs and bangs his fist on the door for what seems to be the hundredth time.

"Seto, _please_," he begs. "_Please_ come out. People have to get into the bathrooms and showers and stuff."

Inside comes the ever uncompromising,

"No."

Duke puts his forehead on the door and sighs, defeated.

All the boys are crowded around the guard, their faces housing different emotions. Ryou is confused; Bakura is smirking, devilishly amused; Yugi is biting his lower lip, obviously feeling awkward and sympathetic; Tristan is rolling his eyes; Joey is sadly and thoughtfully looking down at his feet.

Jared finally runs up the hallway to all the commotion.

"Is he _still_ not coming out?" he asks, and when Duke nods, he sighs and shakes his head. Then, he steps up to the door.

"Seto, come out."

"What have I been saying for the past four _fucking_ hours? _No_!"

"I have the key, Seto. I can get in."

"But you won't be able to get me _out_!"

Ryou can't help but let a burst of laughter escape at that, and immediately, he gets a dirty look from Joey.

Ryou leans in close to Bakura.

"What is going _on_?" he whispers.

Bakura leans back into his friend to reply.

"Well…you know what? Just watch," he says, smirking.

Ryou's eyes widen in interest and bit of surprise at the reply, and he obeys.

Tristan finally lets out a huff and exclaims,

"Just open the door. Who cares if the pyscho's in there? I need to use the freakin' bathroom!"

Ryou and Bakura explode into peals of laughter.

Jared rolls his eyes, and just as he's going to put the master key into the lock, Seto suddenly speaks.

"Tonight is the night of demons and the dead."

Everyone is suddenly so silent you could hear a pin drop.

"I don't want to even set _foot_ near that bed, tonight. No way. They'll come and haunt me the worst, tonight."

No one has any idea what to say.

All of a sudden, Joey steps forward.

"Are you sure, Seto? I mean, I'll be right there with you, so maybe they won't come."

Jared's mouth falls open.

Duke blinks.

There's silence at first, and then…

_Click. _

The door opens.

Joey smiles.

Seto peers out; he looks like a wreck. There are bags under his eyes and his eyes themselves are red from crying. His outfit is askew and his hair is sticking up, but the grateful look on his face shines past everything.

Slowly, so slowly, he steps out.

Seeing everyone standing there, after they had been waiting and begging and going through so much trouble for hours to get him out, he clears his throat awkwardly and announces,

"I'm going to skip my shower tonight."

Then he scampers down the hall as fast he can.

* * *

Joey is walking towards Seto's bedroom at 9:30 that same evening, blanket, pillow, and book in hand.

Ryou and Bakura are chatting off towards the side, but as soon as Joey comes into view, they both stop and look.

Jared is the first to walk up to the young man.

"Joey…are you sure you want to do this?" he asks, staring seriously at the patient.

Joey looks insulted suddenly.

"What do you mean?"

Jared frowns.

"This is _Seto Kaiba _we're talking about, Joey. He wakes up in the middle of the night screeching and sometimes doesn't even _sleep_. And here you're willingly giving up your room to bunk with him?" the head guard says, disbelief in his voice.

Ryou and Bakura quickly look up at Joey's face to see his reaction.

Joey stares silently at first.

Then, Ryou watches as Joey Wheeler gets the most confident, sure look on his face he has _ever_ seen and his eyes narrow. He looks Jared dead in the eyes and announces,

"Absolutely. It's the _least_ I could do for him."

* * *

The day of Christmas Eve, Jared allows everyone's parents to come and visit.

"Christmas is a time of gratefulness and family," he announces that morning. "So your folks are allowed to come for several hours this afternoon and tonight to share a meal with us."

Bakura bangs his head back against the sofa and Ryou groans.

The _last_ thing either of them wants is to see their _parents_.

But regardless, at six o'clock that afternoon, in walks Ryou's father.

Ryou's eyes widen.

Since he's last seen him, he's…changed.

His father seems a bit more tired, and does Ryou see a few gray hairs on his head?

He swallows and walks up to him.

"Hey, Dad," he greets, and lets himself be pulled into a hug.

Thus started an evening full of introductions, discoveries, and meetings.

It was amazing to see how all his friends felt about their parents and how their feelings all differed.

Starting with: Yugi.

Yugi was beaming the entire time he was with his mom and dad. The entire family looked picture-perfect, his parents were both extremely nice and welcoming, and immediately Ryou's father and Yugi's parents got along and started chatting away.

Ryou was standing with Yugi off in the corner at one point and asked him,

"Aren't you mad that they sent you here?"

Yugi shook his head.

"No, I agreed to it. I need help, Ryou. They know I do too, and even though they miss me like crazy, they're still willing to let me get that help."

Ryou is officially jealous of Yugi's relationship with his family.

The next encounter that evening was with Mr. and Mrs. Taylor.

Tristan stood there the entire time, rolling his eyes like a frustrated teenager and ignoring everything his parents said. Right away, Mrs. Taylor started going off to everyone about how happy she was that her son "overcame his addiction".

Ryou snorted when he heard that.

Seto Kaiba doesn't have any parents. All Ryou knows is that they died when he was a small child, but Seto won't tell anyone more than that (which kind of annoys Ryou).

Seto's younger brother, Mokuba, visited him instead. That went nicely; he was very outgoing and surprisingly hopeful about his brother's situation.

Joey seemed really shy about his parents at first; they were warm and always cooing over Joey, even though they were separated. They seemed pretty apologetic because, apparently, Joey's younger sister Serenity couldn't come.

Duke's parents even showed up. As usual, his father got along rather well with Mr. and Mrs. Devlin, and Duke and Ryou also spent the entire time actually chatting with one another.

The evening was going just fine until the very final encounter.

Ryou spotted his best friend over in the corner, alone, watching everyone scamper around and chat with a blank look on his face.

Ryou walked over.

"Bakura!" he called, putting a smile on his face even though his insides were spinning with nerves.

Bakura looked up. His face paled as soon as he spotted Ryou's father standing behind him.

Ryou took a breath in and stopped in front of the slightly older boy. "Bakura, this is my Dad. Dad, this is Bakura," he introduced, trying his best to hold his composure.

At first, Bakura and Ryou's father just stared at each other.

_No doubt_ he had heard about Bakura. Oh, he most certainly had. But he hadn't heard exactly _good_ things considering the fact that most of the information he learned about Ryou didn't come from Ryou but Dr. Potts or Jared, who don't like Bakura very much.

Ryou's father smiled.

"Hello, Bakura," he said, his voice firm with a classic fatherly tone. "So nice to finally meet you."

He cleared his throat a moment, and then added,

"I've heard a lot about you."

Ryou shuffled on his feet when he said that.

Bakura simply nodded politely.

Then, it happened.

Up walked a woman.

She had long white hair and dark brown eyes and a soft face with pouty lips and milky skin. She was dressed in a nice blue outfit with three-inch heels and her face was decked out in eyeliner and lipstick and eye shadow.

She looked like some kind of model or actress, and Ryou found himself sort of surprised when she opened her mouth, and in her oh-so charming voice said,

"Hi there. I'm Bakura's mother."

Bakura immediately looked down, his body tensing, crossing his arms, his jaw tightening, his face paling worse than paper, every part of him showing disgust and shame.

Ryou felt pity well up inside of him so fast that it shocked him.

This was the woman.

This was the woman that left Bakura. Hurt him. Lied to him. Didn't really love him. (As far Ryou was concerned, at least.)

Ryou's father showed no ill will at all, and immediately his face lit up in happiness and he quickly introduced himself. They talked a bit, Bakura's mother and Ryou's father, until finally, she looked and smiled at Ryou.

"You're Ryou, right?"

Ryou narrowed his gaze. It was only when his father elbowed him in the side—_hard_—that he finally answered,

"Yeah. That's me. Your _son's_ best friend."

Bakura's mother looked taken back at the harsh tone that Ryou used at first, but then she quickly re-gained her composure and smiled.

"Nice to meet you," was all she said.

* * *

Now, fifteen minutes after that first meeting, Ryou stands with Bakura in that same corner and they both watch in disgust as everyone hops here and there and talks and laughs like everything is apparently just fine and they're not in a freakin' mental institution with their children.

Bakura suddenly speaks.

"I wasn't sure which would be worse. Having _her_ come, or having _him_ come."

Ryou looks to his friend.

And Ryou almost falls down with shock because Bakura's face is etched in _actual_, _bona-fide_ misery.

"I suppose I should just be happy either of them came, you know?" he whispers, and he glares across the room at his glowing mother who's happily chatting with Mrs. Devlin.

There's quiet, because quite honestly, Ryou doesn't know what to say.

"He's in the hospital. All those years and all those bottles of vodka and beer finally got to him. They think he'll live maybe about a year or something like that."

Ryou wants to scoop Bakura in his arms like he did on his birthday and let him know that he _cares_, but he restrains himself, and simply swallows heavily.

Bakura looks down at his feet and moves the toe of one shoe across the tile floor in a line—back and forth.

"That's why he couldn't come tonight, she said. She said otherwise, he would have been here in a second."

* * *

Ryou's eaten more food than he probably would eat in five years. (Everyone always said that his eyes were bigger than his stomach; he completely agrees.)

He vaguely wonders, as he sips his soda and watches everyone chatter happily around him and feast on the remainder of their meals, why they don't cook _really_ good food like this _all_ the time.

He takes a deep breath in.

Slowly, he scoots his chair back and gets up. He lightly touches his father's back. He flinches a little, and Ryou notices he's in a laughter filled, oh-so engrossing conversation with Mr. Taylor. Finally, he begins to tear himself away.

"Yes, Ryou?" he says.

Ryou jams his thumb over his shoulder. "I'm gonna go take a walk. Let my stomach settle before dessert and stuff," he announces.

He nods.

"Okay, but don't be back later than fifteen minutes."

Ryou rolls his eyes, but nods and then walks off.

He's not even sure where he's going.

He just knows he has to get out of the room.

After a while, the picture-perfect, happy setting of the Christmas Eve dinner kind of made Ryou sick. Not to mention, he hadn't seen Bakura all night.

As he opens the door to go into Ward 227, he gets a sudden rush of chills.

To see the ward silent and dark with the exception of a few lights here and there is strange for him. He's used to it buzzing with his friends and guards and he's used to the now eerie atmosphere being filled with music or clever ideas.

Then, all of a sudden, the strange silence is broken.

"Bakura, I don't know what your _problem_ is. I just don't _understand_ you!"

There's a faint voice coming from farther down the hall. Ryou recognizes it as Bakura's mother.

"Join the club," comes his easily recognizable, sarcastic best friend's voice, followed by a bitter laugh as well.

Ryou quietly scampers closer to the voices. Immediately, he realizes that the two are in the Art Room. He rushes forward, hides behind the doorway, and watches.

They're standing in the moonlit room, arguing.

Bakura is in front of a chair by the table covered in instruments, and his mother is pacing around by the back window.

She's rubbing her forehead in what must be frustration and sighs.

"Look, Bakura, I care. I really do," she says, a desperate tone to her voice.

Bakura scoffs; she glares.

"I just don't see why you don't _see_ that! I'm _trying_. I'm _trying_ to get involved and help you because I _know_ you need it! I'm going to and want to start to be here to help you and guide you! I want to be your _mother_, Bakura! For once in your life! I've done some thinking and decided I need to make changes," she cries, turning and standing, staring straight into her son's eyes, seeming genuinely upset.

At first, all Bakura does is stand stick-straight, silently. Then, he slowly takes his hands and places them on top of the chair in front of him.

"Well, _Mom_…" he starts, his voice faintly mocking. He looks up at her. "Maybe you should have thought of that _before_ I was thrown into the _fucking_ mental institution!"

He thrusts the chair he was holding on to forward in fury; it topples to the ground in a loud clatter.

Then, with one last death glare directed towards his mother, Bakura storms out of the dark room.

* * *

=)


	20. We All Scream For Ice Cream

**AN:** Hey everybody! I forgot to mention in the last chapter: thank you for the marvelous reviews. They always make me smile =)

Also, heads up. I'm gonna upload another chapter tonight because I've gotta go into school during this week for Drama rehearsals, even though it's the holidays, and due to that the updates after that might come a tad later than usual. But I'll still try to update as often as possible.

=(

Sorry folks.

Education comes first, orly?

* * *

Borderline

_"Anger is a signal, and one worth listening to."_

_-Harriet Lerner_

* * *

**20 ; We All Scream For Ice Cream**

* * *

**DISCLAIMER: **I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh!, and this storyline is absolutely, positively fictional. I mean no offense to anyone.

* * *

Tristan is leaving today.

He's leaving on a cool January day.

Ryou slides on a black jacket over his already present purple sweater and swallows.

The window outside is dotted with frost (They've actually gotten a fair amount of winter weather. Frost, cold temperatures, and more recently a _soft_ snow shower showed up), and the world outside shimmers with a clear sort of sparkle. The faint, filtered winter sunlight shines through the small icy designs, and reflections dance around the room and on Ryou, lighting everything up.

He can't believe how time has flown.

When he first came to Rockford, he had just finished up his high school graduation. That was back in June. June, with the warm, dry nights, the dusty, pastel rainbow sunsets, the cracks in the ground, and the confusion and the hope and the fear and the excitement that swirled in his oh-so naive self.

Now, it's over half a year later, and Ryou feels completely different.

He feels more grounded in himself.

Like he _knows_ who he is, in a way.

Ryou walks over to the mirror hanging on the wall. He stares, taking in the person looking back at him.

He's got a pale complexion. Everyone always tells him that. He's not tanned. But he kind of likes it that way, and in these winter months, Ryou feels like his skin is paler than usual, which he likes. He thinks that, especially in this white, shining sunlight, it makes him look really unique.

Kind of like a ghost.

His hair's a pure white (some call it bleach blonde, and he likes to tell them they're wrong when they do), and at the moment it's styled neat, as usual. It's not spiked drastically in the front or back like Bakura's is.

Ryou's kind of short for a guy—5'7''. But he doesn't care. Height never mattered much to him, anyway, and he's got time to grow, still.

Ryou shakes his head suddenly.

It just feels weird to have felt and seen himself change so much.

Before, back in high school, he was immature. His daring, reckless games were just a childish way to rebel, and he looks back on them and laughs now. Before, he didn't really know how to use his unique, "sociopath" personality.

Now, he does.

Now, he's full of clever remarks and confidence and he knows how to use himself to the fullest extent.

It's…nice.

All of a sudden, the door opens to his room.

Duke pops his head in.

"Hey Ryou, we're leaving," he announces.

Ryou nods. "'Kay. I'll be right there."

The door closes, and then with one last look at himself in the mirror, Ryou walks out of the room.

* * *

"They're taking us for ice cream in 30 degree weather," Ryou mumbles, pulling his jacket closer to himself. "Makes you wonder who the real whack-jobs are."

Yugi and Bakura surround him as they stroll down the stone walkway (They saunter carefully because of the still relatively icy/snowy sidewalks) from Rockford to town—Bakura to his right, Yugi to his left. Both are also bundled up in warmer clothes; Yugi's wearing a probably too thick, light blue winter jacket that his mother sent him especially so that he "wouldn't get sick", and Bakura's wearing a long, dark brown jacket that's tied closed only because of the biting wind that's picked up.

Bakura smirks in response to Ryou's comment; Yugi laughs. Ryou shrugs.

All of a sudden, Joey hops up. He looks surprisingly cheerful as his face is tinged with pink and he's wrapped completely in a scarf, hat, and jacket.

"I think it's nice," he says, smiling innocently in that way that he does. "I think it's nice that we're doing something nice on Tristan's last day."

All three boys nod politely, even Bakura. Then, when Joey scampers off again, they erupt into chuckles.

"That boy is too innocent for his own good," Bakura mumbles, shaking his head.

Ryou sighs; Yugi shrugs.

All of a sudden, Bakura rushes forward and dashes to the side of the sidewalk. He hops up and is soon walking on a mound of snow without making a single indentation.

Bakura smirks and puts his arms out. "It's a balancing act," he announces.

Ryou swallows.

He thought that _very_ same thing 6 months ago, while sitting in the principal's office and playing with a pencil, waiting for his permanent record to be read and revealed to his father.

Then, Jared appears. He frowns at Bakura.

"Bakura, get down," he instructs. "We don't want you to fall and hurt yourself."

Bakura gives a small glare at the head guard, but then he hops down and rejoins Yugi and Ryou wordlessly.

The ice cream shop comes into view suddenly, and that's the end of that.

* * *

The boys are all crowded by the counter.

Jared is ordering.

He turns to the group.

"Joey, you said you wanted chocolate-vanilla twist, right?" he asks, and Joey nods, beaming. Seto smiles at this and says after,

"I'll have the same thing."

Jared nods. "All right. Yugi, you wanted the chocolate fudge. Tristan, you didn't want anything. Ryou, you wanted strawberry. Duke wanted the mint chocolate chip and…Bakura? Would you like anything?" the guard goes over the list of ice cream orders.

There's this hesitation in his voice as he asks; it's almost like he's afraid to let Bakura even _speak_.

Everybody turns to the back of the group to see Bakura peering curiously at the menu. They're not expecting him to want anything, because Bakura never really eats actual food let alone desserts, but slowly, the sociopath makes his way to the front and takes a breath in.

He approaches the counter.

For a moment he's quiet.

Then, he opens his mouth.

"I'll have a triple hot fudge banana split sundae with vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry ice cream, whipped cream, walnuts, caramel, _chocolate_ sprinkles, _not_ rainbow, and a cherry on top."

No one says a word as Bakura walks back to Ryou's side, but they're all smiling.

Honestly…" Duke starts quietly, hugging his jacket closer to himself as the chilliness in the air outside seems to have increased during the twenty-five minutes they were in the ice cream shop. "I don't know where he _puts_ it all."

* * *

Bakura had eaten the huge ice cream sundae he ordered in a record of 11 minutes. Without a headache afterwards, too.

The guys are all in one big group, sauntering back to Rockford a few minutes later.

Ryou's got his hands stuffed in his pockets.

"So, you guys, I was just wondering…" Yugi suddenly starts. "Like, what are your guys' experience's with past relationships?"

The group chuckles a little bit.

Yugi smiles. "Well, I mean, I have a great girlfriend I've been going out with for a few years now, but, like, how about you guys? Just curious."

Bakura takes a deep breath in.

"I had one when I was sixteen. When I was sent to Rockford, they cheated on me a couple times with some other guys. Then lied to me about it and cheated with another one before I finally dumped him."

Dumped_ him_, Ryou notices.

Everyone's silent.

That's not exactly the easiest thing to have started a conversation, let alone to reply to.

"I know. _I_ read about it."

Everyone turns to see Tristan, who was trailing behind everyone a bit. He's got a devilish, truly nasty smirk on his face, and his tone is dripping with sarcasm and a teeny bit of challenge.

Surprisingly, Bakura plays it cool. He just stares at the man, not saying a word.

Ryou's heart suddenly ponds so loud he can't hear a thing except Tristan's words repeating over and over in his head.

_I read about it._

**No**.

Tristan just told him that he read one of Bakura's secrets.

One of Bakura's secrets in Bakura's _journal_.

The journal that they read _secretly_.

The journal _Ryou_ let them read secretly.

Bakura stares at Tristan.

The group has stopped walking.

Tristan still has that smirk on his face, and to everyone else Bakura appears to still be staring blankly.

But Ryou is standing right next to Bakura, and Ryou looks closely and Ryou can see:

Bakura is shaking with concealed rage.

"_What_ did you just say, Tristan?" Bakura asks.

His brown eyes narrow, and his tone is strained. It's obvious to everyone—Bakura's normally nonexistent emotions are about to snap.

Yugi swallows and takes a small step forward. He puts his hand out.

"Bakura—" he starts.

Bakura ignores Yugi and starts moving toward Tristan.

Ryou is so freakin' terrified that he can't even breathe.

"What did you just _say_?" Bakura hisses, his anger rising and bubbling out through his tone.

Tristan isn't intimidated.

"_I read it._" Tristan whispers, and Ryou almost falls over.

Ryou can't really remember what happened next. He thinks that maybe he did black out from sheer horror for a moment, because he doesn't remember anything the other boys claimed to have happened.

Bakura lunged forward as soon as the words, dripping with mockery and bitterness, left Tristan's lips.

Before anyone knew it, Tristan was lying on the ground and Bakura was getting pulled back and restrained by Jared, his arms grabbed deathly hard.

"That _son of a_—"

Ryou's vision cleared and he watched as Duke and Seto flew down next to Tristan, who was lying on the concrete, eyes closed.

The way Tristan was sprawled it was obvious he'd—

Ryou brings his hands up to his temples and tries to soothe the throbbing.

"Oh, God…he hit his head on the curb—" Duke says, looking closely at Tristan.

The words sound muffled to Ryou; his head is still pounding and he feels the dizzy, sickening, atrocious feeling of **guilt** rise in his stomach.

"Tristan! _Tristan_!" Seto shouts, desperate, his voice cracking with terror as he hovers over the man.

Joey is standing behind Seto, his mouth agape in horror and his eyes wet with unshed tears.

For as much as they didn't like Tristan, they couldn't deny it. Tristan had been there for years; there was this bond for him that could never truly leave.

But Tristan doesn't move.

* * *

=)


	21. We Lied

**AN:** FIRST OFF:

This chapter was really fun to write. Ryou goes through some major emotional angst in it xD

Plus, you all find out what happened to Tristan!

Then…

The first line of this chapter (`The light slips through the window') is similar to the line "The light, it slipped through the window" from the chorus from The Hush Sound's "Don't Wake Me Up" `cause they're super amazing. xD

Just through I'd throw that out there. Ha.

Uhm…what else?

Oh, I wrote this chapter when I had tonsillitis =) Random fact of the day.

Anyway, I'm going to bed now 'cause it's half past 12 in the morning in England.

Enjoy everybody!

* * *

Borderline

_"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident."_

_-Arthur Schopenhauer_

* * *

**21; We Lied**

* * *

**DISCLAIMER: **I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh!, and this storyline is absolutely, positively fictional. I mean no offense to anyone.

* * *

The light slips through the window.

Winter sunshine shines outside, warming and melting the ice and frost that dots the landscape.

It warms people scampering through town on errands.

It warms the animals that dash about on Rockford's forested grounds.

It warms _life_.

Ryou clenches his eyes shut.

He's got a headache.

_Again_.

He lifts up his hands (they each feel like 20 pound weights) groggily and covers his eyes, and he groans.

The sunshine won't warm Tristan.

The sunshine won't warm Tristan because Tristan is cooped up in a hospital room downtown with life support attached on his freakin' body because he's in a freakin' _coma_ because of a stupid mistake Ryou made.

Ryou's watch beeps.

He dares to peer out of his hands for one split second and check the time.

_3:30 PM._

It's been exactly 24 hours since Tristan's accident. (Ryou remembered the time and set his watch.)

He gulps.

After it happened, all Ryou remembers is being gently lifted up by Yugi (the only one who wasn't completely freaking out at the moment), Duke on his cell phone madly chattering with a 911 operator, and then frantically being shuffled back to Ward 227 with a nervous Jared, a hysterical Joey, a furious Seto, and an exceedingly distraught Yugi, his head pounding like his heart beat and every part of him feeling 100 pounds heavier.

When they returned to the too-well known ward, they were finally all silent. (Before, on the walk back, there had been some crying and "shhh"'s and quite a bit of foul language.) Joey was obviously crying as they all stood there at the doorway, and immediately Seto pulled him into a big hug.

The two stood there for so long in the embrace that eventually Jared, Ryou, and Yugi just left, going on their own ways, not waiting for Seto and Joey to break apart.

Yugi went to the TV room and flicked on the channel to some movie, trying to pretend that none of it was happening.

Jared disappeared into the nurses' station.

Ryou walked like a zombie into the "off limits" living room and fell down on the sofa into a deep sleep.

He woke up 7 hours later at 10:45 PM to pitch blackness and Jared walking in, announcing quietly but steadily that Tristan was declared to be in a coma and put on life support as soon as he got in the hospital.

Ryou hadn't moved from his spot on the sofa since the announcement (with the exception of one time to go to the bathroom).

Ryou's actually extremely glad he's been asleep for most of the past day and a half.

Apparently, according to Duke (who got back to the ward after the ambulance arrived at the scene of the accident and he was free to go), everyone was bustling about in crazy worry and no one was the _least_ bit positive and the air was disgustingly tense as they all awaited news of Tristan's condition, and even now, after the news was out, everyone _still_ is a bit hostile and very uneasy towards one another.

Just the thought of all that hysteria makes Ryou sick, so he's glad he's been unconscious for most of it.

So Jared and Duke are busy at the nurses' station doing who knows what, Yugi is in his room with his CDs (he's arranging them by favorite songs today), Seto is playing bass in the Art Room down the hall (Ryou can hear him), and Joey is probably in the TV room just zoning out to a cartoon like he normally does.

Ryou buries his face deeper into the lemon-yellow pillow.

And, of course, he can't forget…

…He hasn't seen _one_ trace of Bakura for the past 24 hours.

* * *

"Ryou. _Ryou_."

The wonderful haze of peaceful sleep slowly leaves Ryou as his eyes crack open to a misty view of Duke leaning over him.

The only light spilling into the room is from the hallway, so Ryou figures he fell asleep again and it's now nighttime.

"Wake up," Duke whispers, and Ryou can't help himself—he lets out a big yawn.

Then, slowly, he blinks once or twice to clear his head and eyes. "What is it?" he slurs in return, his tone just as quiet as Duke's and also rather sleepy.

Duke tries not to show it on his face, but Ryou catches the nervous glint in his eye and the tiny, _tiny_ frown that pulls at the corner of his lips.

"Dr. Sampson needs to see you in ten minutes."

Ryou's heart rate speeds up.

Dr. Sampson.

_Bakura's_ psychiatrist.

And, apparently, the doctor that worked with the _worst_ cases, or the doctor that worked with you when you had _major_ problems.

_Oh, God._

Ryou doesn't know what to think as he slowly gets up from the couch, feeling his muscles ache in protest as they've been numb and unmoving for so long. It feels weird to move.

For a split second after he's finally standing, he staggers, not used to being on his feet. But then Duke grabs his arm and he steadies himself, and ignoring Duke's, "Whoa. You okay?" he walks robotically out of the room and into the hallway.

The artificial light burns his eyes at first, and he squints. He notices Joey and Seto and Yugi standing at the door to Ward 227.

They're all staring at him, wide-eyed in shock because they haven't seen Ryou for a day and his hair's a mess and his eyes are blood shot and his face is deathly pale and his clothes are wrinkled and his eyes are almost black.

Ryou can't help but smile a teeny bit at their expressions.

He likes that effect he has on people.

Slowly, he begins sauntering forward and steps to the door. He pauses a moment, and turns to the young men surrounding him.

He shoots a small smile.

"Hey," he whispers, and his voice sounds cracked and foreign to his ears.

Yugi grins a bit. "Hey."

Seto nods in acknowledgment.

Joey sighs but smiles a tiny smile.

"We all just got back from Dr. Potts," Yugi informs in a soft voice, knowing that Ryou's probably a bit sensitive to sound at the moment because he's been asleep in silence for so long. "We each had separate visits. We talked about the accident from what we remember happening, our feelings about what happened to Tristan, and stuff like that. Don't be _too_ worried."

Ryou tries to smile at the dark blonde's comment.

He tries.

But he _can't_.

Because deep down—deep, _deep_ down—as he wraps his hand around the cool doorknob to the ward and prepares to step out and walk to Dr. Sampson's office, he knows he _needs_ to be worried.

_Very_ worried.

* * *

Dr. Sampson's office is clouded with smoke.

Duke had said, "I'll be right outside waiting, Ryou, if you need me", opened the mahogany door, and all but _pushed_ Ryou inside the office as soon as they got past the main hall and secretary.

And the first thing that greets him is a deluge of cigarette smoke.

Ryou makes a disgusted sort of face and tries to peer through the haze to the wooden desk sitting across the room. (It has an ashtray resting on top, Ryou sees) A black chair's back is facing him, but it's obvious there's someone in it.

Ryou clears his throat.

"Ryou," the voice speaks. It's loud, clear, and it has a rather proper English accent, like Ryou. "Sit, please."

Ryou glances to his right.

There's a stiff-looking crimson (the design for the room was wood furnishings and crimson everything else, evidentially, Ryou notes) couch up against the wall.

He cautiously steps over to the lounge and plops down.

The chair swivels around.

Dr. Sampson is an older woman. Her gray hair is tied in a tight bun on her head a not a single strand of hair hangs out of place. Her face is pinched with age. Her blue eyes are deeply tired (which is no surprise, considering she's been working who knows how long with the _worst_ mental patients) but still well learned and maybe even caring in a cold sort of way.

Ryou takes a deep breath in.

"I'm sorry."

That's the first thing that came out of his mouth.

He didn't even plan it. It just came out.

The doctor smiles for a split second.

But only for a split second.

"You're friends with Bakura?" she asks suddenly, ignoring Ryou's apology. She gets up from the chair, the material making noise as she stands.

Ryou is taken a bit by surprise with the question. But he sure doesn't show it.

"Yes," he answers, firmly.

He leaves it at that. His and Bakura's friendship doesn't need explaining.

"You know who he is, and yet you _still_ get so close to him," Dr. Sampson says; her voice holds a tone of disbelief.

She's pacing pensively back and forth around the back of the room near the bookcase.

Ryou narrows his gaze a little bit. "Of course."

Then, it happens.

Ryou's experienced it far too many times since he's become friends with Bakura.

Words begin to well up inside Ryou's head and before he could even _consider_ them (which he wouldn't have), they come tumbling out dripping with fresh sarcasm and scorn,

"And, like, what is up with this _room_? Are you trying to _suffocate_ me or something? God, how many packs do you even smoke in a day?"

He smirks.

"Lung cancer isn't good for you, you know. Especially at your age."

The doctor stops her walking.

There's silence.

(Ryou likes that effect he has on people.)

"Ryou," she suddenly starts, her tone almost patronizing. "You have no idea what Hell you've gotten yourself into."

Those words set fire to Ryou as soon as they reach his ears. His stomach starts bubbling with fury, and he narrows his gaze.

"What are you _talking_ about?" he sneers, not caring in the least bit that he's showing such "disrespect" to the head doctor.

Dr. Sampson flies around. Her face is set in a cold glare that Ryou expected.

"You have been here for half a year. We have given you countless therapy sessions, we have you on medication that _should_ be helping you, and you, from what Jared has told me, get along quite well with your ward mates."

She makes a noise of disgust.

"But then you get in here and you're just _nothing_. You're standoffish, rude, and just _mean_."

Ryou laughs mockingly. He shrugs.

"Why do you even _care_?" he snaps back.

The doctor's face goes from harsh to empty. She turns around to face the bookcase, and pulls out a big book.

Ryou catches the title: it's a dictionary.

She opens it. She scans a few pages. She looks up at Ryou.

"Ryou, you were sent here because you have flaws."

Ryou opens his mouth to say something in retort, but she beats him to it.

"We all have flaws, granted, but your flaws are dangerous. Dangerous not only to others, but to _yourself_ , Ryou. _Yourself_."

Ryou glares; at this point, he's beyond disgusted.

"My _God_, haven't you people taken the _hint_? I. Don't. _Care_," he hisses back, his tone rising in pitch with his anger.

Dr. Samspon frowns.

"You haven't let me finish, Ryou," She pauses to glance down at the dictionary she holds in her hands for a moment. "The first thing you have to do here at Rockford is identify your flaws. And then comes the burning question: Are they even _flaws_?"

Ryou doesn't say anything.

"Bakura, your `best friend', embraces his flaws, Ryou. He loves them. He thinks of them as `gifts'. He uses them and hones them."

She pauses.

"But Bakura's also been here for almost three years."

Ryou's stomach swivels in fury and disgust and horror. (Probably because her words are so _true_, but Ryou won't admit that just yet)

He tries not to let it show through on his face.

Dr. Sampson purses her lips.

"I think that you haven't quite gotten to that point yet, Ryou. Not just yet. There's still hope."

She looks down at the dictionary. She reads,

"_Ambivalence. Simultaneous attraction toward and repulsion from an object, person, or action. Continual fluctuation as between one thing and its opposite; uncertain as to what approach to follow_."

She looks up.

"_You_, Ryou. You think you know what you want. You think you know that you want to be like Bakura and that you want to be a sociopath because it's `special', but I really think that you have no idea what in God's name you want to do."

Silence.

"You're stuck in between two paths right now, Ryou. You can take the help we're offering you and make your life _so_ much better…"

A pause.

"Or, you can embrace your flaws and commit yourself to a lifetime here."

She closes the dictionary.

"Thank you for coming to talk with me today, Ryou. I greatly appreciate it."

* * *

When Ryou was little, he used to love to watch caterpillars.

His favorites were the bright, fluorescent green ones with tiny dots of orange or yellow on their backs.

While all his other friends, being typical ten year old boys, would squish the poor little creatures, Ryou would sit and watch them slither around and around on leaves and wonder when they would build their cocoon and become a lovely butterfly.

Then, sometimes, he would just look for a caterpillar cocoon itself.

The light silk that shined in the sunlight was so pretty to Ryou, and it fascinated him that a tiny creature like the caterpillar could come out of that small structure and be a totally different animal.

He always wondered if it was warm inside a cocoon, too, because Ryou always thought that if _he_ was going to go through an entire metamorphosis, he'd at least want his growing space to be _warm_!

Ryou Urie is pretending he's a caterpillar now.

He's in his room.

Yugi isn't there.

The lights are off.

The moonlight casts a beam here or there.

And Ryou is encased in his covers. The sheets and blanket are wrapped all around his body, enclosing him like those very caterpillar cocoons he used to admire as a child.

He's kind of hoping that maybe, _maybe_, when he comes out, he'll be an entirely different person. Like he went through that metamorphosis. That when he gets out of the blankets, it will be okay.

But now Ryou realizes that's stupid.

Of _course_ nothing's going to change because he's hiding in his bed (Yes, _hiding_. He doesn't want to talk to or see Yugi, Seto, or anybody else).

He burrows his face deeper into the pillow and tries to fall asleep.

But slumber won't come.

_Squeak._

The door opens.

"Ryou?"

The voice is timid but caring.

Duke.

Ryou slowly, _slowly_ sits up.

Duke has closed the door, so there's no hall light to burn his eyes.

As soon as he's in view and the moonlight casts light over his features, Duke's face melts into a look of pity because Ryou just looks _sick_. His eyes are dull and his hair is soaked with sweat and his lips are cracked and he's as pale as he was that night at the hospital when he almost killed himself.

And the first thing that comes to Ryou's mind is that Ryou's not mad at the pity he's getting, for once.

He's too exhausted to be mad.

Duke slowly starts to walk over to his friend's bed.

"Ryou…" he starts, his voice sad and sympathetic.

He sits down on the mattress and looks sadly down at the younger boy.

"I'm a horrible person, Duke," Ryou whispers out, his voice dry. He's avoiding the older man's gaze and is only staring blankly at a spot on the wall behind Duke.

Duke shakes his head. "No, you're not. It was an acci—"

"I used to think death sounded kind of nice," Ryou interrupts, his voice monotonous. "It seemed like a nice way to let everything go."

Duke frowns visibly but stays quiet. He knows Ryou needs to talk.

"But now, I just saw it so close, _so close_ with Tristan, and it was…_God_, Duke. I just…"

Before he knows it, before he can _stop_ it, Ryou is crying.

There are tears rolling down his ghostly-pale cheeks and they drip off his face and roll onto his cracked lips (they taste like salt, Ryou thinks, like the ocean he used to go to when he was a little boy on vacation) and the moisture feels _good_ and he's _shaking_ now.

He's sobbing and sobbing and he hasn't cried in _so freakin' long_ and it just feels so utterly _amazing_ that he doesn't think he'll ever be able to stop.

Duke had pulled him into a huge, comforting embrace the minute he saw the first tear roll down the boy's cheek.

Ryou shakes his head desperately, clutches fistfuls of Duke's shirt, and starts blubbering.

He feels really venerable and terrified that he's being so effing _emotional_ and that he, for _once_, isn't confident and sarcastic and all-knowing or whatever the heck he used to think he was.

"D-Duke, Tristan's in a c-coma `cause of me," he starts, his words watery and in-between sniffs and swallows.

He feels Duke's confusion the minute the words come out of his lips, and before the man can say a word, he continues,

"I-I found B-Bakura's journal the other night and showed it t-to everybody…" He pauses to take an inhale and let more tears slither down his face. (Duke's shirt is soaked. Ryou feels kind of bad.) "T-Tristan knew about Bakura's secrets `cause of m-_me_! And Bakura attacked Tristan when he should have attacked _me_ and Bakura got blamed for something _I_ started and now Tristan might _die_ and Bakura might even be dead and it's all my fault and this guilt is _killing_ me, Duke!"

Duke suddenly tightens his hold on Ryou and Ryou lets out a loud sob because he can tell Duke's mad at him.

"Ryou," Duke says, and his tone is harsh and frustrated and everything Ryou's not used to coming from the other man. "Ryou, listen to me."

Ryou manages to nod into Duke's chest so that the other man knows that he _is_ listening.

"This is _not_ your fault. It was _Tristan's_ choice to tease Bakura. It was _Tristan's_ choice to put himself in danger. Guilt is natural for something like this, but believe me, it's _not_ your fault. And yeah, while you will have to tell Bakura about the journal _sometime_, I can guarantee you it won't be at a time when he's dangerous. I _swear_ it. You _don't_ have to be afraid," Duke explains, and Ryou starts crying even _harder_ because Duke's so freakin' _amazing_ and Ryou knows he doesn't even deserve to be _around_ him.

Ryou shakes his head violently, still not daring to look up into the man's eyes and _still_ crying.

"N-no, Duke, _no_…" he insists, and lets out a small, desperate breath.

Duke groans. Ryou hurts more inside.

"`No' _what_, Ryou? `No' _what_?" Duke asks harshly, frustratedly. He's aggravated with Ryou. He just doesn't see how Ryou can hate himself for something that _really__wasn't_ his fault.

Ryou lets out a small wail.

"Duke, I'm just a bad person. I'm a bad person," he cries, shaking his head and repeating those words to himself over and over.

Duke hugs Ryou a little tighter.

"What do you _mean_, Ryou?" he replies, truly confused.

"I'm _embracing my flaws_," Ryou quotes, inwardly laughing at himself. "I'm gonna _ruin_ myself Duke. I _see_ that now. Everything I've been for the past six months of my life is just _wrong_. It's not who I _am_!"

All of a sudden, Ryou stops sniffling and the tears stop rolling and he's quiet.

He snaps his head up to look at Duke, mouth hanging open in some sort of shock, and Duke blinks. Concern in evident in his eyes.

"Ryou…?"

Ryou closes his mouth. He swallows.

"It's not what I _want_, Duke."

Duke stares.

Ryou falls back into the hug.

"I'm sorry," he whispers.

But there's _one_ more thing left unspoken.

No more tears come, but Ryou doesn't think he's ever hurt as much as he does in that one moment before he says the last few words. Every part of his body aches and screams with agony, and the sentence tumbles out of his lips. As clumsy as it is, it means so much.

"No more."

No more.

Ryou Bakura is done.

* * *

=)


	22. Cross My Heart And Hope You Die

**AN:** Hi guys. Two things:

1. Thanks for all the great reviews. I can honestly say that you guys have given me some really amazing ones throughout this fic and I can't, in all honesty, think of a response to some of them them that I deem, well, _good_ enough to thank you properly (which I find kind of ironic as I wrote this whole fic) xD

But I will reply to all these reviews one day =)

2. This fic has been creeping up on me a little because **this is actually the second-to-last chapter**. I didn't even realize I was _that_ close to the end. It's all sorts of sad, but I'm excited to start new things too.

So yeah, the next (last!) chapter will probably have a real long AN about how much I've loved writing this and how much I love you guys. You deserve that.

Warning:

This chapter's really intense, emotional, and…yeah.

Enjoy.

* * *

Borderline

_"We can only appreciate the miracle of a sunrise if we have waited in the darkness."_

_-Anonymous _

* * *

**22: Cross My Heart And Hope You Die**

* * *

**DISCLAIMER: **I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh!, and this storyline is absolutely, positively fictional. I mean no offense to anyone.

* * *

Ryou and Duke slowly slip out of the bedroom.

The two stand in the doorway and peer down the hallway, and Ryou tries hard to get used to the fluorescent light. No one seems to be around, so Duke smiles kindly at Ryou and steps out into the corridor. Ryou follows.

He and Duke had waited a little bit after Ryou's tears subsided to let Ryou regain his composure and hopefully let his red, puffy eyes soften a little bit. They were quiet as they sat and waited in the moonlit room.

Ryou was _so_ thankful to Duke, because Duke just knew that in those minutes Ryou needed the silence and just faithfully sat and watched Ryou carefully, making sure his younger friend was okay.

Finally, Ryou decided that he was feeling a_ little_ bit better, and Duke suggested softly that maybe it would be nice to watch a movie with the other guys in the TV room. Ryou agreed.

Now, as he walks to the room, he realizes that his eyes _have_ lost _some_ of their inflammation, but he still feels really embarrassed and awkward for his evidence of crying as he shuffles down the hallway after Duke, who is smiling and acting like his normal laid back self.

This all feels very strange to Ryou.

Never before has he felt this _meek_ and _uneasy_.

His "epiphany" back in the room seems to have melted away the entire person he used to be. All his confidence, cockiness, and sarcasm is gone. It's as if he's starting all over.

The two arrive at the TV room, and Duke announces in a loud, clear voice,

"Hey, guys, Ryou was wondering if he could come watch the movie with you."

All three boys, who had been seated comfortably on the couch, turn. Their faces peer at Ryou curiously, and Ryou wants to shrink into a little ball as their gazes pass over him. (Once again, all these shy, nervous emotions are really new to him and he's not totally sure what to _do_ with himself.)

But immediately, Yugi's face breaks into a welcoming grin, he scoots over, and he replies cheerfully,

"Of course. C'mon and sit here, Ryou."

Ryou feels horrible as he slowly walks over to the other boys. He plops down next to Yugi and peers at his friends sitting next to him.

Seto is pretending not to be interested in looking at Ryou (who's been cooped up in either A: the living room or B: his bedroom, so he hasn't been seen or talked to in a long time) and keeps his eyes on the TV screen. Joey gives Ryou a soft smile, and Yugi whispers,

"It's good to see you again."

None of them mention his still obviously puffy red eyes or the fact that he's been a recluse for the past 24 hours.

Duke walks up to the arm of the sofa to Ryou's left and sits on it lazily. He starts to watch the movie, too.

Ryou glances up at him.

Duke must sense Ryou's gaze on him, because he takes his eyes off of the screen for a moment and smiles down at him; it's a calming, truly understanding grin.

Duke won't tell a _soul_ about what just happened, and Ryou knows that without a doubt. Duke will keep his "secret" until Ryou wants others to know about it, and Duke won't use his outburst of sobs and emotion as a tool against him.

Ryou knows that he'll never, _ever_, in his entire life, be as amazing as the four young men sitting around him.

* * *

There are voices.

Ryou doesn't know how he even heard them, but he did.

He woke up to echoes.

Slowly, tiredly, he lifted his head from his pillow and, in the grogginess of sleep, looked to Yugi's bed.

As soon as he caught sight of it, he was awake in a flash.

The bedcovers were untidy (_so_ unlike Yugi that it was a bit scary) and wrinkled, and it was obvious Yugi had gotten up to go to the bathroom or get water or something along the lines of that.

But Ryou knows Yugi didn't get up to use the bathroom or to get water. It wasn't that simple. He doesn't know how he knows, but he just _knows_.

So Ryou slides out of bed and shivers as the cool air clashes with the warm heat radiating from his body, and he tries to ignore the shiver that flies through him as his feet touch the tile.

He ignores the thumping of his nervous heart as he walks to the door, opens it, and peers out.

As soon as he does, he knows _something_ is going on.

Seto and Joey's door is open. They're gone, too.

Ryou bursts out of his room and scampers down the hallway. He catches sight of the nurses' station, and his heart pounds a little harder.

Duke isn't there, either.

He stands in the middle of the corridor after discovering Duke is gone, in the pitch-blackness, alone for a few moments.

Feelings of helplessness and hopelessness and hurt well up inside of him, and he has no idea what to do.

Until he starts hearing those echoes, again.

They sound like ghosts.

But _familiar_ ghosts.

Ryou dashes down the hallway to the Art Room.

* * *

It's freezing and Ryou's having a hard time remembering how to find his way around, but he knows he's doing the right thing.

His bare feet tap anxiously against the stone, cold ground of hallway, and he flies through the long passageways, listening for those echoes that are now getting clearer and louder.

Finally, he reaches the place he was hoping to find.

In front of him lie those three tunnels, big, frightening, and dark.

For a split second, Ryou _really_ wishes he'd brought a flashlight.

But he knows he has to keep going no matter what so he takes a deep breath in, shakes off his coldness, and peers as hard as he can through the moonlight to try and see which tunnel he should walk through. It seems hopeless at first because those voices have stopped and Ryou has nothing to try and follow now, until suddenly, words come flying out of the tunnel to the far right.

Ryou doesn't think as he runs forward through the tunnel. It's not until he's halfway down the passageway that he realizes that this is the _one_ tunnel Bakura didn't show them when he and the other guys first came down here.

He's not sure if that's a good or bad thing.

All of a sudden, his feet stop moving and his breath hitches in his throat because in front of him stand five people.

Seto is standing protectively in front of Joey, his dark blue eyes blazing with fury.

Joey is cowering behind Seto, shaking, his face shocked.

Yugi is staring, violet eyes wide as saucers.

Duke stick-straight, his face set like stone in a nervous look.

Then, there's the final person.

All Ryou can see is the back, but the messy white hair and the pale skin and cocky, menacing stance are all too familiar.

Bakura turns around.

Ryou and Bakura's eyes meet, and for a split second, Ryou feels a rush of joy at seeing his best friend again. But then he sees the _look_ in Bakura's eyes, and his blood runs cold.

His friend's stare is dripping with hate and vengeance, and Ryou doesn't think he's ever felt more terrified in his entire life because those feelings are directed at _him_.

A small gasp resonates throughout the group of young men when they see Ryou standing there.

Bakura's face suddenly melts from pure disgust to a mocking, devilish smirk.

"Why, hello there, Ryou. Come on over," he says, and his voice is loud and dripping with sarcastic sweetness.

Ryou stands there, and he tries to ignore the fact that he's shaking.

Bakura frowns.

"What's the matter? Are you _scared_?"

Ryou swallows and takes one step forward, then one more, and then before he knows it he's standing right in front of Bakura, and Bakura is smirking in _such_ a disgusting way that Ryou can't understand why in God's name he _glares_ and sneers,

"What are _you_ doing here, Bakura?"

Joey lets out a cry of dismay and exclaims,

"Ryou, be caref—!"

But Bakura flies around and shouts at the top of his lungs,

"SHUT _UP_."

And no one says another word.

Bakura flies back around to Ryou, and his stare has gone from whatever faux kindness he was pretending to have to pure fury and hatred.

"I guess you're better than all of us, now," Bakura says; his voice is mocking and he raises an eyebrow. "Or, rather, better than _me_."

Ryou lets out a small, nervous breath.

"Wha—what are you _talking_ about?" Ryou exhales, because he's not even trying to play dumb; he honestly has no idea what Bakura is talking about.

Then, it happens.

Ryou is up against the wall, terror and agony filling his veins, his heart pounding, and he gasps for breath.

Bakura's hands close harder against his throat, and Bakura's dark eyes are merely centimeters away from Ryou's lighter brown ones.

Ryou can feel his best friend's breath on his skin as Bakura sneers,

"Duke Devlin here told me about your little escapade a few hours ago. You decided you don't _want_ to be everything you were. You decided you _wanted_ to change from the oh-so dreadful sociopath you were. You decided to turn your back on _me_."

Ryou catches Duke's desperately apologetic look out of the corner of his eye, and Ryou immediately forgives him. When Bakura wants to know something, you _tell_ him. Duke only told about what happened between the two of them because he didn't want to _die_.

"You _want_ to play the hero, Ryou? You _want_ to play the hero who's `turned on his evil ways', the _Darkside_, and revealed the secrets of the enemy to the good guys? Do you _want_ to be that conforming little back-stabbing snake, Ryou?" Bakura asks, his tone pure poison.

Ryou takes a shaky breath in and tries to pull Bakura's hand off of his neck. (He's hoping this is all a bad dream.)

Bakura smirks and for a split second the hatred is gone from his eyes.

"'Cause if you want to be that "hero", Ryou, I will _gladly_ play the villain," Bakura whispers, his tone terrifyingly mocking.

Next thing he knows, Ryou is on the ground, coughing and sputtering for oxygen, because Bakura finally let go of his throat.

Bakura let him go and spun around, and to the other four, terrified young men, he shouts,

"I'll _gladly_ play the villain because evidentially that's the only thing I'm _good_ at! _Right_ guys?"

Duke takes a breath in. He's trying hard not to show his fear, but a little bit leaks through as he shakily yells back,

"We never _said_ that, Bakura!"

Bakura pauses for a moment. There's silence.

The calm before the storm.

"WELL YOU SURE _THOUGHT_ IT!" Bakura finally shouts, his eyes blaring, and everyone in the room, even Ryou, shrinks back in horror. "You all _know_ that you think I'm this fucked up psycho who's good for nothing except sarcastic remarks and lies and misery! YOU _KNOW_!"

Bakura takes a furious breath in, and carries on.

"WELL YOU KNOW WHAT _I_ THINK OF _YOU_ GUYS? _DO_ YOU?"

No one says a word in reply, and Yugi has started crying.

Bakura laughs suddenly; it's bitter, evil.

He throws his head back, and drawls out,

"Oh…my…_God_. You are all so _useless_."

Ryou can't take it anymore. Still on the ground behind his best friend, he shoots his head up and cries,

"WHAT IS YOUR _PROBLEM_?"

Bakura turns. He stares down at his friend; his face is in that killer glare, and Ryou is shaking again.

Bakura smirks.

"What's my _problem_? My problem is that _you_ are a traitor, Ryou, and—" he flies around to Duke. "—and _you_ are a liar!" He points to Yugi, Joey and Seto. "And you three are weak, insane, and hypocrites!"

Duke is furious, now. His eyes blare and his fury is stronger than his fear as he spurts back,

"And what was _Tristan_, huh? What was _Tristan_? Was he _so_ bad that you had to go and put him in an effing _coma_?"

Bakura laughs menacingly, hauntingly, again. He calmly walks over to Duke and stares the man down.

"Tristan, my friend," he starts mockingly, "Tristan was just a plain old, good for nothing _moron_. I should have tried to kill the guy a _long_ time ago."

Seto suddenly snaps.

"You are _so_ insane, Bakura. You're _so_ insane. You're just pissed `cause Tristan knew about all that crap you write in your journal. Well guess what? We _all_ know, Bakura! We _all_ read it! Ryou, Yugi, Joey, Tristan, and I _all_ read those oh-so precious pages in your journal! And you know what else? _Ryou_ showed it to us, so I don't think that oh-so special friendship you had was really that special at all!"

Ryou knows that Seto wasn't trying to get him in trouble with Bakura.

Seto was honestly just so furious that he threw out whatever he could to hurt Bakura.

But after the words come out, Ryou feels his heart drop, and for a split second, his vision goes black.

There's silence.

Ryou dares to look up, and when he does, he stops breathing.

Bakura is staring at him blankly.

And for some reason, in that moment, "blankly" is worse than "killer" or "hatefully" or any other dreadful adjective or adverb.

Ryou gets up and runs.

He runs and runs and runs as fast as he ever has in his entire life and doesn't stop to look behind him and races farther down the tunnel (which is lit by tiny, orange fluorescent lights that cast an eerie glow on the corridor ahead of him) and tries to find some way out to safe his effing _life_.

All of a sudden, he stops. In front of him is a door. He throws it open.

A large storage room lies in front of him. It's filled with boxes of medicine. Valium and all sorts of other liquids are stored in the long glass vials around him, shining menacingly in the blue, moonlit room.

Ryou takes a deep breath in and runs in. He trips over God knows how many boxes and is positive that he'll have _far_ too many bruises on every part of his body tomorrow, but he keeps on sprinting through until—

"Ryou, why are you so _scared_?"

Bakura's voice echoes behind him, full of sarcasm and hate, and Ryou almost passes out.

He has to get out of there. Find help. _Something_.

Ryou catches sight of a flight of metal steps leading to a door that has a sign above it reading EXIT. Without giving it a second thought, he begins flying towards it.

As soon as he's there, at the door, he swings it open and—

It's raining.

It wasn't _quite_ cold enough to snow, and outside on the roof almost-freezing raindrops pound the ground.

Ryou's heart races.

He steps out into the air and the cold water melts with his sweat and he takes a shaky breath and every part of his body aches.

He feels like sobbing.

He feels like falling onto the ground and crying for days and days because _he can't take it anymore. _

But he's not crying, and he's not going to start.

Slowly, so slowly, he begins to walk farther across the roof.

His feet patter against the wet concrete and the raindrops plop around him and he's soaked, but he doesn't take his gaze off of the cloudy night sky as he walks robotically to the edge.

He reaches it.

He looks down at the drop.

His words from the talk with Duke hours ago ring in his mind:

_Death seemed like a nice way to let go of it all. _

Ryou slowly brings his hands up to the concrete surrounding the rooftop. The stone feels rough and cold as it touches his fingertips.

He thinks that maybe the landing won't be so bad.

After all, he'll be dead right away, so the only scary part would be the falling itself.

But he'd rather die by throwing himself off of a building than to be murdered by his best friend and the one person he loves more than anybody else in the world.

Footsteps echo behind him.

He doesn't turn as someone walks out onto the roof.

He's a bit too caught up in suicide.

"Ryou."

It's Bakura.

Ryou turns his head.

His best friend his standing there, his chest heaving up and down, the rain soaking through the thin t-shirt he's wearing, dripping off of his ghostly white body.

In his right hand Bakura holds a shot. The liquid vial Ryou recognizes as Valium from the room he just passed through. The needle is gleaming and ready.

Ryou knows that if anyone were to be injected with that medicine, the over-dose would kill him within minutes.

Ryou smiles weakly.

"Bakura."

Bakura smirks devilishly, his eyes lighting up with hate.

"Do you have any _idea_ what it's like to be me?" he asks, his tone terrifying and quiet.

Ryou doesn't say anything.

"They gave me _shocks_, Ryou. They strapped be in a chair and shot _electricity_ through me because I wouldn't `cooperate'," Bakura whispers and takes a step closer, bringing the vial of Valium nearer to him. "It took me forever to get out of that fucking room they locked me in, but I did. I came back here, I and tried to find _you_. But instead I found Seto and Joey and Duke and Yugi and learned that _you_ didn't really want anything to do with _me_ anymore."

Ryou still doesn't move as Bakura moves to only a few feet away from him.

"And now, I find out that you lied and back stabbed me, too. You, my `best friend'. The only person I really, truly—"

Before he finishes his sentence, as if he _just_ realizes what he's saying, Bakura groans loudly. Then, he takes a deep breath in.

"My parents hate me. My dad is all but dead, my brother loathes me, my mom thinks I'm some demon. I have nothing, now, Ryou."

Bakura smirks.

"And quite frankly, I kind of want you dead."

All of a sudden, there's a huge explosion of noise, and Seto, Joey, Duke, and Yugi burst through the metal door to the roof he and Bakura are standing on. Ryou looks up only because he notices something rather peculiar.

Duke's got a gun.

Duke is pointing the gun directly at Bakura, and without words, everyone standing there knows that Duke Devlin will shoot if needed.

Bakura turns from looking at Duke (he seems to be unaffected by the fact he's at gunpoint) and stares back at his best friend.

"Ryou, I was wondering. Can you tell me…why do they hate me?"

Bakura's words come out with an eerie sort of innocent curiousness, and Ryou blinks.

Bakura frowns.

"Oh come _on_, Ryou. They want me _dead_. Why is that?"

Ryou suddenly feels words welling up inside of him. They well up to the point of bursting and finally, _finally_, they pour out.

"Because you're _already_ dead!" Ryou starts.

Everyone's faces immediately read confusion, but Bakura just smirks.

Ryou takes his hands off of the concrete in front of him, and thoughts of suicide are mentally pushed aside for just a moment. He walks forward closer to Bakura.

"You're dead already, Bakura. You have no heart; you don't feel. You don't love. You don't worry for others. You're _selfish_. You don't have a soul; you don't really think or long to be free. You're _dead_," Ryou says, his voice rising in pitch and hatred so that by the end of the sentence, he's almost shouting.

"_Dead_, Bakura. _Dead_," he repeats himself, his gaze narrowing.

Bakura's begun to shake with rage. He lifts up the shot of Valium.

Duke shuffles a bit closer.

Bakura casts a quick look at Duke, and then turns his gaze full force on Ryou. His eyes are filled with hate.

"You have _no idea_ what you're talking about," Bakura hisses, his tone rising as well.

Ryou smirks.

"No idea, Bakura? _Really_? You think I have _no idea_?"

He runs forward before he can stop himself, and stops all but two feet away from the other young man.

"I know _perfectly well_ what I'm saying, Bakura. You are a cold hearted, selfish, lying, _insane_, lost nineteen year old who likes to play games and _pretend_ he knows he's confident and knows who he is when you're really just so_ pathetic_ and self-destructive that you can't _stand _it!" Ryou shouts, and then he sees it.

Tears.

In Bakura's eyes.

His brown eyes are glazed over with liquid and now his lower lip is shaking.

But no pity wells inside Ryou.

None at all.

In fact, only buried fury bubbles up. Fury that he knows has been simmering beneath the surface for God knows how long. And now, it all comes out.

"YOU. ARE. _CRAZY_, Bakura. _CRAZY_!" Ryou cries, and Bakura shakes a little harder. "YOU NEED _HELP_. YOU HAVE _NO IDEA_ HOW COMPLETELY MESSED _UP_ YOU ARE!"

Bakura lowers the shot of Valium unnoticeably in his thin, shaking hand.

Ryou glares as hard as he's ever glared in his entire life.

Loathing anger fills his veins, and he's shaking, too.

He sees Duke standing off to the side, silent, his chest heaving up and down, ready to shoot a bullet through Bakura.

He sees Seto shivering off to the side of the doorway and staring hard and coldly at all of them.

He sees Joey clutching his arms, trying to both warm and comfort himself, sniffling, tears coming out of his eyes.

He sees Yugi, standing there, staring blankly, his angelic eyes hauntingly dead. Tears roll down his cheeks and his hair mats to his forehead as he watches his closest friend of over ten years stand there, about to A: be shot or B: kill someone, and he must have the same question burning in his brain that everyone else has as well:

_Why? _

None of them chose to be crazy.

None of them _wanted_ this.

Not even Bakura.

Bakura never _once_ said, "I always wanted to be crazy."

He just said he enjoyed it now that it's happened.

But here they all are, standing on the top of a mental hospital in the pouring January rain, wordless, ready to kill.

Ryou takes a shaky breath in.

"I hate you, Bakura. I hate you more than you will ever know."

Silence but for the rain.

_Drip-drop. Drip-drop. _

And Bakura falls.

Bakura falls to the ground.

His hands fly up to his head and bony fingers clutch white locks tightly as his hands entangle in his hair and the water pools around him. He clutches his head as hard as he can and his veins almost pop out of his pale, thin skin.

He's in so much pain.

_So_ much pain.

But Ryou doesn't do a thing.

He's shaking; Bakura is on his knees, trembling.

Then, it happens.

Bakura lets out a wail.

In all their lives, Yugi, Seto, Ryou, Duke, and Joey have never heard a wail like that and never again will.

Desperate.

Agonized.

Miserable.

Hated.

_Sorry_.

Bakura sobs and screams and shouts for what seems like hours but what only can be a few minutes, and everyone just stands there.

Ryou finds his insides turning to goo and his limbs shaking and he starts sobbing and falls to the cold, wet ground.

He brings his hands up to his eyes and digs his palms into them and _loves_ the pain. He lets the tears run and mix with the rain. He lets himself shiver and he lets his teeth chatter and his lips tremble and he lets himself be _himself_.

Then—

"God, Bakura—!"

Ryou looks up.

**BANG. **

Silence.

Bakura is crouching in front of him.

His eyes are wide.

His mouth is open.

The vial of Valium has fallen from his hand.

He's shaking.

Blood is soaking through his outfit.

Yugi lets out a sob.

Joey screams.

Seto shouts out various obscenities and Duke wails.

Time moves like molasses and Ryou takes deep breaths in and tries to stop his spinning mind and he hears as Duke and Seto rush over and grab Bakura as he lets out a cry and falls over.

Duke is blubbering, sobbing. The gun has fallen from his hands.

"I-I-I'm so sorry. Oh, God. Oh dear _God_. I thought he was going after Ryou, I didn't, I _oh, God_…"

Then, Bakura lets out a huge scream of agony, and Ryou snaps back into reality.

His best friend has just been shot.

Ryou flies forward.

He pulls Bakura into his arms and cries _so _hard as they mash together in an explosion of blood, sweat, tears, rain, and **_love_**.

Ryou buries his head into Bakura's hair and shakes and shakes and mummers whatever comes to mind.

Seto is loudly calling to Joey to get some help and Yugi is running, trying to find something to stop the bleeding.

Ryou slowly opens his eyes, and he can barely see because they're so blurry with moisture. But he looks, and Bakura's gaze meets his and it's so _pained_ that Ryou wants to throw himself off of the roof again just to get the image out of his mind.

Bakura smirks sadly. He's crying.

Tears dance down his cheeks and mix with rainwater and he whispers,

"I'm sorry."

Ryou shakes his head and lets out a sob.

"D-d-don't be…" He inhales shakily and exhales with a wail. "P-please, Bakura, don't be. You'll be okay now…you c-can change…"

Bakura shakes his head.

Ryou shakes his head, too.

"Ryou, I-I don't think I can—" Bakura starts.

Ryou feels fury bubble up inside of him. He balls up his fist and whacks it so had against the concrete of the roof that his hand starts to bleed.

"SHUT _UP_," he orders, his tone dripping with frustrated anger because he _knows_ he can't control whatever's happening to his best friend and it _tears him apart_.

Bakura laughs as much as he can. It's bitter, and it's nothing like that laugh Ryou adores and would give _anything_ to hear in that moment.

Then, slowly, Bakura mutters out,

"Please, I know I messed up, but _please_ don't forget me, okay?"

Bakura doesn't know that Ryou hopes everyone _else_ will remember _both_ of them once the night is over, because that edge of the roof is starting to look rather enticing.

And it still hasn't stopped raining.

* * *

Ryou sits, his back propped up against the doorway.

It's stopped raining.

He's still on the roof.

The concrete scratches his back and every muscle and bone in his body screams with pure agony. He lets the crisp, cool, clean morning air fill his lungs with his small breaths.

He watches the sunrise with his bloodshot eyes.

Lemon yellow.

Crystal blue.

Creamy white.

Rosy pink.

It's so perfect that Ryou wants to _scream_ at it all.

He almost does, but a voice stops him.

"They're planning on sending you home next week."

Duke has walked out on the roof and leans up against the wall near Ryou. His timing for small talk is both just right and _so_ wrong.

"With some extra, in depth sessions of therapy, they think you'll be fine leaving for home really soon."

Ryou doesn't move.

Duke sighs.

"I have no idea what in God's name to say to you, Ryou."

Ryou shakes his head and smiles sarcastically.

"Then don't say _anything_," he mummers, and Duke nods.

Then he leaves back through the doorway, and begins talking to whom Ryou recognizes as Jared.

Something stirs.

Slowly, Ryou looks down.

Bakura lies in his lap, his eyes staring up at him. His hair is a wreck; it flies every which way and is still wet. His face is ghost-pale, his body looking thinner than ever. His clothes are soaked in blood, and his arm is wrapped with a makeshift sling.

But Ryou doesn't think he's ever looked more beautiful.

Quiet, delicate words come out of his dry lips. They speak such a pure truth that it sort of takes Ryou's breath away.

"I'm going to miss you, Ryou."

Ryou thinks that in that moment, he's never been more thankful for anything in his entire life than Bakura being alive.

Gently, he reaches up a hand and moves a strand of silky hair out of his best friend's eyes. He rubs the skin softly with his thumb, back and forth, and Bakura closes his eyes and sighs at the touch.

Ryou looks down lovingly and lets a small smile grace his lips.

"Well then you'll have to get out of here pretty fast and come visit me, won't you?" he whispers, and feels his heart hurt a little when a tear rolls down Bakura's cheek and he shakes his head slowly.

Bakura's brown eyes open.

He sniffles.

"I won't be leaving here, Ryou. I'm a `hopeless disaster', remember?" he replies, his voice dripping with misery and a slight mocking tone.

Ryou shakes his head and brings his other hand up to lightly caress Bakura's injured arm.

"No, Bakura. You _will_ leave here. You _will_ be okay. We _will_ see each other again. I promise you."

Ryou leans down and stares unblinkingly into his friend's eyes, their faces inches away.

"I promise you."

Bakura smirks and Ryou's insides swivel with joy as his best friend whispers back,

"Call me crazy, but...I_ believe_ you."

* * *

I can't get over that this is the second to last chapter! D: _How_ did that even happen?


	23. Epilogue: You Won't Ever Get Too Far

**AN:** So I'm sat at my computer. It's 9:40 in the morning in England (which is really early for me as I'm practically nocturnal by nature, but society forces me to keep other hours) and I'm trying to work out how to put this AN into words.

I guess I'll start by saying that this is the last chapter of _Borderline_.

Thank you.

_Thank you. _

I could never thank you all enough. This was an amazing experience for me, to have my first Yu-Gi-Oh! story on this site enjoyed by so many while I myself thoroughly enjoyed writing it. All of you readers' support and comments were great.

Thank you.

I will still be around on reading and writing (I've got quite a few stories up my sleeve), but I'll never forget this one story.

Honestly, I'm really sad to see it go. But I hope this epilogue ends it nicely, and I hope you all enjoy it.

* * *

Borderline

_"Every ending is just a new beginning. "_

_-Proverb _

* * *

**Epilogue - You Won't Ever Get Too Far From Me**

* * *

**DISCLAIMER: **I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh!, and this storyline is absolutely, positively fictional. I mean no offense to anyone.

* * *

Ryou stares out of the window to his condo.

He bites his lower lip and watches as the clouds roll in up above in the sky. It had been a lovely spring day, and it was just ruined because of those incoming thunder clouds.

He sighs and frowns childishly.

Even at nineteen years old, he still acts like a baby when bad weather rolls around.

"Ryou!"

Ryou turns his head, snapping over to look at the person standing in his living room.

Yugi's purple eyes gaze up at him. He laughs a little upon seeing Ryou's disappointed face.

"Don't worry, the storm won't last forever. We can go to the park after it's over," he says, and Ryou smiles cheekily in return.

"_Ooo_! Good! Once we get there, can we play hide-and-seek?" he exclaims, smiling hopefully, and Yugi shakes his head, laughing loudly.

"You are a five year old trapped in a nineteen year old's body, Ryou, no doubt in my mind," he jokes, and Ryou laughs in reply.

"You know it!"

Yugi regains his composure and jams his thumb over his shoulder. "I actually came to tell you that Seto, Joey, and the other guys are here," he says, and Ryou replies with a "cool" and hops up off of his bright red, comfy couch.

The two friends walk back into the main room, and Duke (who had been busy watching the TV) looks up.

"Glad to see you two finally decided to join the party!" he jokes, and Ryou scoffs.

"Duke, without me, there would _be_ no party!" he says, and everybody chuckles.

Seto Kaiba steps forward from the doorway. "Hey, long time no see."

Ryou nods, smiling. "Yeah, 24 hours is a _super_ long time."

Joey Wheeler, who had been standing next to Seto, shakes his head. "You two are so dumb."

Seto smiles and winks. "Right back at you, Wheeler." He leans over and gives him a small hug.

Joey blushes and mumbles something under his breath that sounds like, "I hate you, Kaiba."

All of a sudden, Yugi, who had been standing behind Joey, steps up and asks,

"Can we start playing music, now?"

Then, a voice from the back adds,

"Yeah, that _is_ what we came here to do in the first place!"

Everyone turns to see Tristan Taylor rolling his eyes.

Duke nods. "Right."

Everybody steps back into Ryou's living room and takes their place at an instrument. Music fills the home, and for hours, it's kind of like old times.

Old times that Ryou is glad to have gone through and be over with.

Days passed, and he left Rockford.

He left Rockford.

He was "cured".

The biggest chapter in his life was over, and Ryou didn't know quite what to do. His parents bought him a condo in a nice neighborhood not too far from his old house, and he settled in there for a bit. He got a nice job that paid the bills, and he played music, so he was _okay_.

But through this "okay" existence, Ryou had one little thing itching at the back of his mind.

He never heard a word from any of the other guys (not even _Duke_) after he left Rockford.

No letter, visit, phone call…nothing.

Ryou tried not to let it bother him, but there wasn't one moment in the first couple months of living in his post-Rockford life that it didn't come to mind.

He loved each and every one of those boys, and the thought of maybe not seeing or talking to any of them ever again made his heart ache.

He thought about calling Rockford or even the hospital to find out about _Tristan_ even, but he could never seem to muster up the courage to do anything whenever the thought came up, so he just lived his life wishing and hoping.

But then, on April 12th, his doorbell rang.

There on his porch stood all his old Rockford friends, newly declared "cured" and "ready for the world". Even Tristan had come out of his coma and was standing there, smiling.

It was a joyous reunion except for _one_ small thing—

Ryou puts down the new, off-white guitar he just got for his birthday. He yawns, stretches, and announces,

"Hey guys, I'm gonna be out on the porch for a bit. Come on out if you need me."

Everybody nods or verbalizes their agreement, and Ryou starts out.

Once he's out in the open air, he inhales deeply. The fresh, post-storm scent fills his lungs and he looks up. The sun is setting.

_He didn't get to go to the park._

He laughs at himself; he finds it funny that that's the first thing that pops in his mind.

But he shrugs it off, and just feels grateful for the beautiful weather and all the amazing friendships he has.

His second chance.

He found himself, through all that turmoil and struggle, he _found_ himself and came out of it okay.

Ryou considers himself a butterfly, now.

He used to be a lost little caterpillar, wandering around and playing games.

But he went through his own metamorphosis, the metamorphosis that saved his life, and is now a full grown, beautiful butterfly, ready for the world.

Slowly, he saunters over to his porch swing. He plops down on it, it squeaks, and then he begins pushing himself back and forth.

He stares thoughtfully and quietly at the setting sun.

A tear rolls down his cheek.

Soon, Ryou is crying.

Ryou is crying rather hard, and he brings his hands up to his face and tries to stop it, but the tears won't stop _falling_.

He feels worried, because he doesn't want Yugi or Duke or anyone to hear him and come out and get concerned, but he _knows_ the tears won't stop and he _knows_ why.

Even though he _tries_ to deny it, his journey will never be complete until he sees _one_ last person.

But that person hasn't been seen by anyone in six and a half months. Not even Yugi.

Anytime anyone asked, they were just told that it was confidential information, and no one could get a hold of his parents, either.

Ryou cries harder as memories race back to him.

Brown eyes.

A beautiful, rare laugh.

Soft white hair.

Musical and literary talent.

His best friend.

Ryou hears the sound of someone's footsteps on the porch.

His head shoots up, and he tries to frantically wipe his tears away.

"I-I-I'm fine, Duke, I just—"

"I'm not Duke."

Ryou is almost afraid to look up.

Bakura stands there in front of him, the low sun casting brilliant glows on his face and Ryou is breathless.

The one person he'd longed to see for so long is standing right in front of him.

(He kind of wonders if he's dreaming.)

Ryou's mouth falls open.

"Bakura."

His best friend nods once. Then, he whispers out,

"Yeah. It's me. I got out of Rockford a few days ago."

Ryou looks immediately at the boy's arm. It's under a black jacket, but it seems fine as it hangs lazily at his side.

"Y-your arm—" Ryou starts, sniffling madly and trying to quickly regain his composure, embarrassed that Bakura caught him crying and that his words are coming out so clumsily.

Bakura rolls up his sleeve.

His arm looks completely fine except for one scar where the bullet hit. Ryou mentally thanks God that his arm is okay.

Bakura laughs a little at Ryou's pleasantly surprised face.

"It's amazing what medical technology and physical therapy can do these days," he says, and Ryou smiles and nods.

"Yeah," he says, and sniffles.

There's silence.

Bakura just stands in front and stares at the sky above Ryou's head and Ryou just stays on the porch swing and stares at the ground.

Then, suddenly, Ryou feels a rush of embarrassment as he realizes what he's doing.

"Oh, gosh, Bakura, I'm sorry. C'mon, sit down," Ryou scoots over and finally invites Bakura to have a seat.

Bakura chuckles a little, and walks over. He sits himself down, and Ryou feels his stomach swell in joy at being so close to Bakura again.

Ryou swallows.

"You look good," Ryou says, and it's true. Last time he'd seen Bakura…well, he'd rather not think about it.

Bakura nods in acknowledgment. "Thank you. You do, too."

Ryou smiles. He still hasn't actually looked at his friend since he sat down, yet.

The change in Bakura is so great and so wonderful that Ryou wants to start crying again, but he doesn't. He holds it back. It's not the time and place for crying.

But Ryou can't deny it anymore.

Bakura is _free_.

Whatever was holding him back before, those chains have been broken. Bakura will be okay, now.

There's silence.

"So do you guys play still? I mean, you, Duke, and Yugi?" Bakura asks, a quiet sense of nostalgia in his voice.

Ryou nods.

"Yeah. But, it kind of stinks, `cause we wanna start a band but we don't have a rhythm guitarist," he explains, his tone suddenly a bit depressed.

There's a pause.

"Do you think, that, like, _you_ would like to maybe play as our guitarist or something?" Ryou whispers out, daring to ask, and Bakura all but exclaims back,

"Of _course_!"

Even in the dark, Ryou sees the blush dotting his friend's cheeks. "I mean, uh, yeah. That, like, sounds pretty cool. Thanks." He smiles sadly. "I miss playing with you guys."

Ryou nods. "We miss you, too."

Silence arises.

Again.

Ryou can't hold it in anymore. He flies around and stares at his friend in the now nighttime light.

"Why did you just disappear?" Ryou asks, his tone hurt and soft all at the same time.

Bakura swallows and doesn't answer for a moment.

Then, he turns to Ryou and their gazes meet, and Ryou thinks Bakura looks the most beautiful he's ever seen him.

"I _tried_, Ryou. I did. I wanted to. But Jared and Dr. Sampson wouldn't let me. They sent me to a different wing of the hospital where I was put in advanced therapy, and I tried every day to see or talk to you or Yugi or someone from 227, but I couldn't," Bakura whispers.

Ryou bits his lower lip.

"But I knew I had to see you guys again. So I tried my hardest and eventually…" He heaved a breath in. "Eventually I was okay. The process was sped up `cause of what we went through, though…"

He looks forward at the stars now dotting the horizon and pauses.

"I can't believe I almost killed you, Ryou. I'm so sorry."

Ryou shakes his head.

"It's in the past, Bakura. You're fine now; I forgive you, and everyone else will, too."

Bakura's eyes glimmer with tears.

"I was so messed up, Ryou. So messed up. And that night, when you told me you hated me…I realized it," Bakura says, and swallows tears.

Ryou feels a tear slide down his own cheek, and he reaches out and touches Bakura's shoulder comfortingly.

"I'm glad you're okay, now," he whispers.

Bakura nods. "Thanks."

All of a sudden, Duke's voice comes from the open window around the front of the porch.

"Ryou! Get in here! We're getting ready to have dinner! Yugi's making spaghetti!"

Bakura and Ryou both chuckle. Ryou calls back,

"All right! Gimmie a sec!"

After Duke's "okay!", he turns back to Bakura, who is obviously feeling awkward and is biting his lower lip in a way that looks rather adorable.

Ryou smiles softly.

"Why don't you have dinner with us, Bakura? The guys would love to see you again," he asks.

Bakura snaps his head around and stares at Ryou with wide eyes. "A-are you sure?" he stammers.

Ryou laughs. "Of course!"

Bakura takes a deep breath in and lets it out heavily. He closes his eyes.

For a minute, it's all quiet.

Then…

"Ryou, you know how they say there are people who mean so much to you that without them you couldn't live?" Bakura whispers.

Ryou doesn't take his eyes off of Bakura.

"Yes, I do," he says softly back.

Bakura turns to face Ryou. Their gazes hold one another's for a few silent moments, and then Bakura says,

"You're one of the few people that makes my world go round, Ryou. I don't think I could live without you."

Ryou looks up at the sky.

On the inside, he's bursting with joy. Happiness. Relief.

Love.

He smiles.

A tiny streak of silver flies across the backdrop of the navy blue spring night sky, and Ryou whispers,

"Look. A shooting star."

Bakura follows his gaze, and he smiles.

"Make a wish," Ryou says.

Bakura shakes his head.

"I already have anything I'll ever want."

Ryou smiles. Slowly, so slowly, he wraps his arms around Bakura and pulls his body close. Ryou inhales the scent of his best friend that he hasn't smelt in so long and feels Bakura gently press his lips on his own, in a sweet and romantic kiss.

Bakura gently pulls away and leans his head atop Ryou's happily.

"Well then we're both set for life, I guess," Ryou whispers, feeling immeasurably happy.

Then, he looks up to see his Bakura, and his breath hitches in his throat because…

There's no smirking.

There's no witty comeback.

And…

For the first time in his entire life, Ryou watches as Bakura smiles beautifully and the stars explode into a burst of silvery light.


End file.
